Class. 

Book M 3 
Copyright N?. 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSiT: 



THE 

ADEQUATE NORM 

AN ESSAY ON 
CHRISTIAN ETHICS 



BY 

ARNOLD HAMILTON MALONEY, 
M.A., B.D. 

Vicar of St. Philip's Church. 
Indianapolis, Ind. 



1914. 

C. E. PAULEY & CO. 
PRINTERS. 



V 



Copyright 1914 
by 

Arnold Hamilton Maloney 



SEP 25 1914 

P / 

©CI.A380549 

4M / 



PREFACE. 



The original draft of this essay was sub- 
mitted in the Spring of 1913 to the Depart- 
ment of Ethics of the General Theological 
Seminary in partial fulfillment of the re- 
quirements for the degree of Bachelor in 
Divinity. Since that time portions of it, 
rewritten and revised, have, on several oc- 
casions, been read before Ministerial Alli- 
ances and Literary Clubs. Repeated re- 
quests — the genuineness of which one may 
not question— on the part of several persons 
who have heard these papers read, that they 
be put into permanent book form, have at 
last convinced the author that, whereas 
nothing is gained by declining, some good 
might possibly be derived by complying with 
such earnest requests. Should good follow, 
however infinitesimal it might be, the author 
will feel satisfied that no mistake was made 
by his compliance. 

The sources of information consulted and 



the published works of writers from which 
help has been freely drawn are many. And 
throughout the text efforts have been made 
to indicate our indebtedness by the use of 
references and quotation marks. 

The author is also glad to take occasion of 
acknowledging himself heavily indebted to 
his brother, Mr. Clarence M. Maloney, LL.B., 
for numerous invaluable suggestions, cor- 
rections and other kindnesses. 

A. H. M. 

Indianapolis, August, 1914. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Introductory 5 

PART I. HISTORICAL CRITICISM- 
CHAPTER 1 

Comparative Ethics 13 

CHAPTER 2 

Evolution in Ethics 32 

CHAPTER 3 

The Finality of Christian Ethics 42 

PART II. THE PROBLEM OF 

ETHICS- 
CHAPTER 1 

An Ethical Postulate 51 

CHAPTER 2 

The Task of Christian Ethics 66 

PART III. THE ETHICAL IDEAL- 
CHAPTER 1 

Met-Adelphism 101 

CHAPTER 2 

Its Adequacy 126 

CHAPTER 3 

A Suggested Programme 148 

CONCLUSION— 

A Note of Hope 159 



INTRODUCTORY 

The history of religion is the history of 
the ebb and flow of human interest in, and 
attachment to, eternal realities. The his- 
tory of theology is the history of the posi- 
tions indicated by the magnetic needle of 
current interest in the thought-values of re- 
ligion. The substance of religion remains 
constant through quantitative variations of 
its manifestation ; the substance of theology 
changes with the shifting scenes of the 
thought-interests of peoples and times. The- 
ological thought has no centre of gravity — 
unless the human mind, a variable and un- 
stable manifold, can with any show of ex- 
actitude be called a centre of gravity; relig- 
ious experience has its centre of gravity in 
the effecting, however feebly or fully, of the 
will of God. Religion takes for granted the 
being of God and endues Him with the fun- 
damental qualities of mind and character; 
theology offers an apologetic for the being of 

5 



6 ADEQUATE NORM 



God and construes a schema of divine attri- 
butes with dogmatic precision. A man may 
be a good theologian with a poor specimen of 
religion or with no religion at all ; or, a man 
may be exemplary in his religion and be at 
the same time a poor theologian. Religion 
may go with theology or it may not; theol- 
ogy, however unconsciously, vaguely, or un- 
systematically possessed, must go with relig- 
ion. For a man may have, and be able to 
give, reasons for the being of God; to de- 
scribe God satisfactorily to the critical mind ; 
and even dilate on the categorical imperative 
of His will and yet not endeavor to adjust 
himself to that will ; but a man who strives 
diligently to live according to the will of God 
must, were it merely in the motive of the 
endeavor, have a notion of the God whose 
qualities he strives to envisage in his life and 
a sense of the genius of His will. Religion 
is life ; theologies are views. 

Now, although theology is not a sine qua 
non to the religious man, it is an adornment 
which may be capable of reacting benefi- 
cently on the intensity of his religious life. 
Herein lies its value. In days gone by the- 



INTRODUCTORY 



7 



ology was predominantly dogmatic. Popular 
interest centered around the nicety of an- 
alytical knowledge of the metaphysical qual- 
ities inherent in Deity. Sieges and assaults 
from without as well as within the folds of 
the Church called forth the best efforts of 
Christian scholars to vindicate the Catholic 
view of God. This was the age that gave 
definite form to the great doctrines and 
creeds of Christendom. Following this the- 
ological "attitude" a question was raised. 
Briefly stated it was this: You have an- 
alyzed the nature of God ; but are you in po- 
sition to verify rationally the being of God? 
Can you prove the existence of that which 
you have assumed? It was then that theol- 
ogy took on an apologetic turn. And here- 
after the major portion of the body of theol- 
ogy has been a long-drawn-out discussion of 
such questions as: Is there a God? If 
there is, can He be described? And if so, 
then describe Him. 

Dogmatic, apologetic, and apologetico- 
dogmatic theological energy has gravitated 
until comparatively recently when a distinct- 
ively ethical turn of the needle has been 



8 ADEQUATE NORM 



made. This age is little interested in the 
dialectic of divinity ; but keenly interested in 
bringing life under the control of God's will. 
The shift from theology to ethics is signifi- 
cant. Ethics is not religion nor is it theol- 
ogy ; yet it identifies itself with parts of both. 
On its theoretical side it draws near to the- 
ology, correcting its extravagancies and as- 
similating its staple results; on its practical 
side it joins hands with religion, enhancing 
its value and buttressing its fort. Ethics is 
concrete as well as abstract. An ethical 
man is one who thinks and lives within 
bounds of approved ethics. It has to do with 
the problem and the living of life. Herbert 
Spencer defines life as the continuous ad- 
justment of inner relations to outer. If that 
definition be accepted, ethics aims at under- 
standing these relations and at adjusting 
them to each other. It sets a standard or 
norm and then endeavors to construct a 
pathway leading to it. Like every other 
science it is conducted by individuals or 
schools, each with a peculiar bent and a dis- 
tinct outlook. Hence there are variations 
and contradictions to be met with when 



INTRODUCTORY 



9 



comparison is made between the statements 
of the several investigators. But if this be 
the case the question arises — and it is quite 
a cogent one — as to which norm must be fol- 
lowed when so many are given. And we 
seem at the very outset to land in confusion. 
In striving to answer this question and avoid 
the confusion a brief survey of representa- 
tive ethical theories will be made ; first, to 
show that a fundamental unity underlies 
them ; and, secondly, to show that the Chris- 
tian norm is representative of the climax of 
ethical evolution with the inherent capacity 
of unfolding itself so as to meet the exigen- 
cies of all times and possible conditions. 

Indeed, so vast is the inclusiveness of 
Christian ethics that scholars are ever busy 
on the task of demonstrating its universality. 
Negatively, the solvent for every moral ill, 
the panacea for every evil Christian ethics 
has been parceled out in terms of specific 
virtues for specific vices ; positively, the last 
word on ideality it has been dissected to feed 
every aspect of ethical hunger. In this "ap- 
plication" process the synthetic character of 
the Christian norm has been practically lost 



10 ADEQUATE NORM 



sight of. So-called secular ethics invariably 
starts out with an organic idea as the centre 
from which specific points radiate. Chris- 
tian ethics has busied itself with elucida- 
tions of its radiating points with no definite 
regard for the organic concept. 

In this essay a definite effort is made to 
centre thought on one entrancing idea in 
which all others are united, from which they 
all issue and around which they all revolve. 
And we hope that this new departure in 
method may receive the consideration and 
the development it merits. 



PART I. 
HISTORICAL CRITICISM. 



11 



CHAPTER 1. 



COMPARATIVE ETHICS. 

In his work on the "Origin and Growth of 
the Moral Instinct/' Mr. Sutherland says, 
"What we think the world around us to be, 
is only the symbolic interpretation of our own 
consciousness."* This is a fact of signifi- 
cant importance and consequently it can not 
be overlooked in the formulation of our 
moral judgments. Since one is bound by 
the very necessity of his nature to project his 
subjective feelings, in order to construct out 
of them the objective world in which he lives, 
it is not unnatural to expect that opinions 
will vary, one man's feeling being identical 
to that of no other man. The objection 
raised against this view is that it advocates 
an ethical subjectivism which would inevit- 
ably lead to license. "What I judge the 
world ought to be," says Sidgwick, "must, 

*Vol. 2, p. 313. 

13 



14 ADEQUATE NORM 



unless I am in error, be similarly judged by 
all rational beings, who judge truly of the 
matter."f This desire for objectivity is 
valid, but it may be better satisfied by the 
fact that there is somewhat of similarity be- 
tween the mental constitutions of men. Be- 
cause one judges an act to be good or bad it 
does not stand to reason that such judgment 
is solely the result of an individual emotion ; 
it may have reference to an emotion of a 
more general character, for emotion is capa- 
ble of being instructed and directed by rea- 
son which presents a more striking uniform- 
ity than does feeling. When I judge the 
show-window of a certain store on Broad- 
way, New York City, to be beautiful I do not 
merely mean that it satisfies my aesthetic 
taste only but I tacitly assume that it will 
be similarly adjudged by anyone who is ca- 
pable of appreciating the beautiful. The in- 
fluence of the intellect upon moral judgment 
is certainly immense (vid. Aristotle, for ex- 
ample) for the moral consciousness to a 
large extent owes its development to the 
progress made by thought; but a sharp dis- 



fMethods of Ethics, p. 25. 



COMPARATIVE ETHICS 15 



tinction must be drawn between the agent 
which helps and the^ instrument which 
causes. As to origin, "our moral judgments 
must ultimately be referred to our moral 
emotions of approval or disapproval. 

In its primitive naive state there were 
practically no complications in internal and 
external conditions so as to produce varieties 
in emotional reactions; neither were there 
marked differentiations in the thought-prod- 
uct of the people and consequently there was 
a "uniformity of views." But with progress 
there was naturally developed a heterogeni- 
ety in existing conditions — physical, mental, 
and social — causing a corresponding diver- 
sity of opinions. But progress is always 
welcome, present or in retrospect, and since 
it brings with it diversity it is necessary and 
desirable that men's moral judgments should 
present variations. 

(a) Consciousness Un-moral: Among 
primitive peoples custom and that alone is 
the ruling principle of all action; and strict 
obedience to it is enforced. With these peo- 
ples custom has a dual aspect. It is habitual 
and because the contrary act would be un- 



16 ADEQUATE NORM 



usual it is also obligatory. Under the dicta- 
torship of custom the prevalent belief is that 
conduct interpretable as being a breach of 
faith brings misfortune upon the offender, 
upon his relatives, or upon the community 
as a whole. Thus certain tribes of Australia 
hold that the Erkincha disease comes about 
as a result of breaches of custom. $ Three 
views are held by these peoples respecting 
the causal nexus between the disease and the 
breach, the first magical and the two others 
religious. In the first the individual feels 
conscious that even before the act is com- 
mitted its consequences would be disastrous. 
There is, therefore, present in his mind a 
horror, an instinctive dread, and this consti- 
tutes him a fit member of human society. 
But such a conception is mechanical rather 
than ethical. In the second there is the con- 
ception of some spiritual intervention. This 
is the real animistic basis of conduct. The 
agent is brought by the contrary deed under 
the power of the offended spirit. The Da- 
kotas attribute bad luck in the chase to a 



$See Westermarck, "The Origin and Development of 
the Moral Ideas." 



COMPARATIVE ETHICS 17 



previous offense committed by some member 
of the hunting party or his family against 
the spirit of the dead.* The spirits like the 
savages themselves hate their enemies and 
love their friends, their peculiar attitude be- 
ing conformable to the object they inhabit. 
They are not moral beings whom wickedness, 
as such, offends. They are selfish beings 
concerned only with conduct affecting them 
individually. Whenever their authority is 
tampered with they manifest their resent- 
ment. It is only in this indirect manner 
that animism provides a sanction for con- 
duct. In the third, the spirits themselves 
are conceived of as personifications of the 
moral order. They now embody a certain 
type of disinterestedness transforming their 
actions from the sphere of mere resentment 
to that of justice. They supervise the cus- 
toms of the family or tribe without reference 
to their own interests in the matter and in- 
flict punishment on any infringer of the laws 
laid down by custom as a jury would. This 
idea of disinterested administration of jus- 
tice had its birth in the development of the 



*Westermarck, ibid. 



18 ADEQUATE NORM 



conception of a Supreme Being as Director 
and Protector of the whole moral order 
whose will was carried out by the several 
spirits of animism. The vengeance of a 
ghost in the second stage is quite different 
from the judgment of a god which arises in 
this stage of the moral consciousness yet in 
embryo. The god takes peculiar interest in 
moral acts as such, assisting the needy be- 
cause he is in need and punishing the of- 
fender because he is an offender. In this 
stage, crude though it be, the point is at- 
tained where the ethical element begins to 
make its appearance as a fact to be reckoned 
with in human consciousness. 

(b) Consciousness Ethical: Following 
closely in the wake of this period comes re- 
flection which, as it grows more and more, 
compels men to set aside blind custom and 
to substitute for it a higher rule of life with 
a more profound understanding of its rela- 
tion to cosmic forces. The stimulus is men- 
tal as well as economic. Similar beings 
dwelling together in the same community are 
subject to simultaneous reactions, and the 
sense of these common reactions makes pos- 



COMPARATIVE ETHICS 19 



sible the conception of many minds with 
common experiences. Social consensus 
stands out as the criterion of habits and 
opinions. To reverse the order by consult- 
ing one's own judgment with conscious dis- 
regard of judgments already in vogue seems 
at once futile and audacious; but there are 
impetuous minds born to disregard the 
chances they take with forces against them 
and even to flatly deny that they are taking 
chances. By them primitive ideas are an- 
alyzed and reconstructed with the view of 
making them better adaptable to certain per- 
sonal ideas of life and character. With such 
a method as this there is the beginning of 
an ethical system conceived of as the basis of 
a conscious ordering of human life accord- 
ing to standards devised by the deliberate 
thought-efforts of the best and wisest mem- 
bers of the race. These efforts were carried 
on synchronously yet independently in two 
different parts of the world — in China and 
in Greece — and this makes it a very interest- 
ing undertaking to study the variations de- 
veloped in the process of systematization. 
The ethics of Confucius, consistent with all 



20 ADEQUATE NORM 



systems standing independently of religious 
sanction or common custom, lays down as its 
basic principle the premise that virtue is its 
own reward. The great teacher repeatedly 
insisted that the man who practiced virtue 
had no fear whatever of punishment from 
any source and no need of anticipating di- 
vine reward. "Virtue for virtue's sake is 
sufficient reward for the upright man." On 
this subject Hobhouse writes, "The basis of 
morals, then, is the intrinsic desirability of a 
great ideal which accords with the true prin- 
ciples of man's nature when brought to their 
due development by proper education. To 
such an ideal man must hold fast in spite of 
all that fortune or his fellow-men can do to 
him, and that will be best for him in that he 
so remains lord of himself. In so doing he 
keeps the appointments of heaven, yet his re- 
ward is nothing external to the act itself, but 
consists merely in the high desirability of 
the life lived in accordance with the best 
principles that are in one."f 

As to its application, this premise was in- 
tended to be all-inclusive. The individual in 



tEvolution of the Moral Ideas, Vol. 2, p. 165. 



COMPARATIVE ETHICS 21 



private life was to live absolutely in and for 
the service of the family and tribe and the 
king in public life was to relate himself to 
his people as father to children, ordering his 
conduct in such wise as to show to those of 
his own household the principles of family 
life, and to the community the principles of 
corporate life, upon which the structure of 
Chinese society should be erected. He was 
to rule more by example than by precept, 
thereby causing his influence to radiate into 
a circle the circumference of which was to 
be as wide as his kingdom. "If you lead on 
the people with correctness," said he, "who 
will dare not be correct? To govern is to 
rectify." Benevolence and rectitude are the 
leading notes of the character thus de- 
veloped. On the whole, however, the ethical 
teacher of China and his successors made lit- 
tle or no attempt to get back to first prin- 
ciples — to discover the why or the wherefore 
of things. They were therefore moral in- 
structors and legislators rather than philos- 
ophers ; hence they accepted too much of the 
traditional and left the country still bound 
in the fetters of antiquity. 



22 ADEQUATE NORM 



The Greeks started with the same premise, 
namely, that virtue should be pursued with- 
out the notice of "men or the gods" ; but their 
method of approach was an entirely different 
one, so much so, that it entirely demolished 
the blind laws of custom and the traditions 
of the Ancients and inaugurated the age of 
progress. Trained reasoning and method- 
ical analysis now begin to play the leading 
role in determining the laws of conduct. The 
first step taken towards the overthrow of 
customs was in the fifth century B. C. when 
a wave of skepticism swept over the land 
like a flood. What was the source of these 
customs? was the burning question of the 
day. Right and wrong could not possibly be 
based on law, it was said, else there would be 
one and the same law of conduct in force 
everywhere, and this was not the case. The 
decision, therefore, was that laws of moral- 
ity were only conventional, depending for 
their sanction upon the arbitrary will of 
men, and so it would not be impious to put 
them to the test. This phase of thought 
gave rise to philosophic investigation and 
independence of thought. The principle it 



COMPARATIVE ETHICS 23 



laid down as a working hypothesis was that 
every man seeks good, or what appears as 
such to his mind, for himself. Socrates in 
his use of it was well aware of its individual- 
ism if not in fact at least in phrase, yet he 
insisted that however liable it was to being 
so interpreted it was not only reconcilable 
with the highest claims of consciousness, but 
it also helped to set these claims upon a firm 
basis in reason. But the inevitable deduc- 
tion was that only the wise could be good 
citizens since they alone would be sufficiently 
sensible to discover the good. The hypothe- 
sis, therefore, tended to make conduct a mat- 
ter of intellect and not of intrinsic character 
and it destroyed moral responsibility. To 
Socrates it was simply unthinkable that good 
or evil was dependent upon will. Just let 
a man see the good and he will seek it inevi- 
tably. Morality is only a matter of instruc- 
tion. Plato seeing the dilemma introduced the 
emotions to co-operate with reason, thereby 
essaying to vindicate the retention of moral 
responsibility, but his effort was a failure 
because he hitched the cart before the horse ; 
and the problem passed on to Aristotle. Like 



24 ADEQUATE NORM 



his predecessors, Aristotle taught that every 
intelligence chooses what is best for itself ; 
but, to understand what is best, he argued, 
there must be a synthesis between reason 
and character. The wrongdoer is culpably 
liable because ignorance on his part in choos- 
ing the wrong is a mark of bad character de- 
veloped through loose methods of living which 
have corrupted his moral judgment — an 
arguxnentum in eirculo. The antidote which 
he offered was the practical training of youth 
for the purpose of developing the required 
character. And this character, he claimed, 
would give the right aim to a trained intel- 
ligence. But this is decidedly an aristo- 
cratic system. It presupposes a condition 
which is the birthright of only the elite. 
Sons of noblemen and kings — not the vulgus 
— were considered by him. Origen in his 
treatise against Celsus, contrasting the 
Christian inclusiveness with Pagan exclu- 
siveness says, "We cure every rational being 
with the medicine of our doctrine, but Plato 
and the other wise men of Greece with their 
fine sayings, are like the physicians who con- 
fine their attention to the better classes and 



COMPARATIVE ETHICS 25 



despise the common man." It was quite a 
common charge against early Christianity 
that its teachings could only persuade "Peo- 
ple destitute of sense, position, or intelligence, 
only slaves, women and children. But 
Tatian's answer was convincing. He said: 
"Not so. Our maidens philosophize, and at 
their distaffs speak of things divine. The 
poor no less than the well-to-do philosophize 
with us." And Justin adds, "Christ has not, 
as Socrates had, merely philosophers and 
scholars as his disciples, but also artisans 
and people of no education."* The Greek eth- 
ical teachers came to call the righteous, not 
sinners, to repentance. Such is the exclu- 
siveness of Greek ethical theory. Nor were 
they unconscious of this, for Aristotle at one 
time likened society to an animate organism 
of which some men represented the brain or 
instrument of thought while others stood for 
the lower organs that function under the di- 
rection of the brain, and which, because they 
were by nature lower, could never attain to 
the position of the brain. This is the out- 

^Quotation taken from Harnack, "Mission and Ex- 
pansion of Christianity," pp. 117 and 209. 



26 ADEQUATE NORM 



come of all systems based on intellectualism 
as the ultimate cliscerner of moral ideas. 

The differences between Chinese and 
Greek ethics are marked ; but the differences 
between Greek and Hebrew ethics are more 
marked. As translated into rules of con- 
duct, Plato advised "common marriage/' 
while the Hebrews held monogamy to be the 
only recognized form of marriage. The 
Greeks (and especially the Stoics) held sui- 
cide to be an honorable act, a relief from 
misery when misery was one's experience; 
the Rabbis denounced it as criminal even 
under the extremest conditions of torture 
when one had no doubt but that one's earthly 
career must soon cease, and Josephus brands 
it as cowardice. The Greeks busied them- 
selves about the cultivation of the rational, 
the aesthetical, and the physical; the He- 
brews made the search for, and acquisition 
of, holiness and righteousness their end in 
life. To contrast these radical differences 
there are illustrations galore, but leaving 
aside the application let us turn to the theo- 
retical basis thereof. This theoretical basis 
is the conception of God and of man's rela- 



COMPARATIVE ETHICS 27 



tionship to Him. For the Greeks God is but 
another name for the Cosmos. With such 
a deity spiritual relationship is out of ques- 
tion ; and morality becomes but a calculus of 
prudential obedience and adjustment to the 
natural world or the world of abstract ideas. 
From such an ethical viewpoint there could 
be no rise above the morality of the state, 
for where man's relationship to some supra- 
material power is not apprehended anything 
approaching a world-system is practically 
unthinkable. Only individual virtues in such 
a case can be expected. As a result ethics 
was deprived of that penetrating bond of 
union which it needs to make it inclusive 
and which it receives when the realm of hu- 
man personalities is bound together into a 
larger unity with some superhuman, per- 
sonal power. The Hebrews kept this bond 
of union intact, for their ethics had its basis 
and vindication in a religious principle. 
There is one God, Creator and Sustainer of 
the world who, as such, is the Founder of the 
moral order. From Him there radiates 
flames of Divine Life which, entering into 
the inner nature of men, constitute them 



28 ADEQUATE NORM 



sons of God and brothers of each other. In 
view of this organic relationship it becomes 
the solemn duty of each to elicit the spirit- 
ual welfare of the other ; hence one man felt 
that in order to the attainment of his end it 
was his duty to assist the other also, and not 
(like the Greeks) to obstruct him. This cer- 
tainly marks an advance in the development 
of the moral consciousness, and that, in 
spite of the recognized fact that intellectual 
life among the Greeks was far in advance 
of that of the best Hebrew thinker. One 
reason why the Hebrews dropped short of 
the mark was their clannish world-view. 

We now find ourselves on the verge of an 
historical movement which began in a very 
circumscribed compass, but which, charged 
with vitality too powerful for that compass, 
soon broke forth like new wine placed in old 
bottles and enlarged its borders. Jesus 
Christ has appeared and His disciples have 
begun to assail the citadel of the world's 
thought and action, The world in which 
Christianity found itself was a veritable 
melting pot of diverse and divergent thought 



COMPARATIVE ETHICS 



29 



and practice. With a decadent Greek learn- 
ing for the centre, Roman institutions for 
the circumference, and all other conceivable 
types of synchretistic thought indiscrimi- 
nately filling the space between, Christianity 
came forward to assert its claim and win 
for itself the trade-mark of finality. Al- 
though Prof. Harnack may be a correct in- 
terpreter of the mind of Jesus when he as- 
serts that "Jesus addressed His gospel— His 
message of God's imminent kingdom and of 
judgment, of God's Fatherly providence, of 
repentence, holiness and love— to His fel- 
low-countrymen/'" and that "He can not 
have given any command upon the mission 
to the wide world/'f it is not to be doubted 
that the first missionaries did consider 
themselves within their own rights when 
they overstepped national and racial bounds 
and geographical limits and staked life with 
all its worthwhileness and its comforts on 
the one endeavor to universalize the teach- 
ings of their Master. The simplicity yet 

♦Mission and Expansion of Christianity, Vol. 1, p. 2 6. 
tlbicL, p. 37. 



30 ADEQUATE NORM 



rich versatility of those teachings guaranteed 
for them from the very outset a strength 
which could grapple successfully with any 
speculation, with any cult of the mysteries, 
and with any theory of conduct. But it is 
this very versatility which engenders the 
sense of inherent contradiction. Early Chris- 
tianity "excited extraordinary fears and 
hopes," says Harnack, "fears of the immi- 
nent end of the world and of the great reck- 
oning, at which even the just can hardly 
pass muster; hopes of a glorious reign on 
earth, after the denouement, and of a para- 
dise which was to be filled with precious de- 
lights and overflowing with comfort and 
bliss."* But modern Christianity has 
changed the picture. It looks to the present 
life as the sphere in which the soul must be 
harmonized with the world and the world 
with the soul. It hopes to develop here a 
perfect order with no thought of a denoue- 
ment, and it warrants that this order will 
make life long, pleasant, happy and useful. 
The versatility of Christianity gives the im- 



*Ibid, p. 90. 



COMPARATIVE ETHICS 31 



pression of contradiction; its unity guaran- 
tees for it leadership of the permanent sort 
of the world's best thought and conduct. 
Its versatility insures its adaptability; its 
unity insures its vitality. 



CHAPTER 2. 



EVOLUTION IN ETHICS. 

Having briefly sketched this "clash of 
judgments" and "warfare of ideas," it now 
devolves upon us in the effort at reconciling 
them to discover that larger synthesis which 
is the essential feature of the successful 
norm. 

One of the standing objections to ethics as 
a science is that moral opinions differ, that 
modes of conduct considered right in one age 
are deemed wrong in another. I think the 
objection soon loses force when we leave 
aside ethics for the moment and reflect upon 
the history of other fields of thought. Be- 
cause the earth was at one time said to be 
flat; that the sun died each night and an- 
other came into being every morning; and 
because men in this age have accepted as 
fact the heliocentricity of our planetary sys- 
tem, no one would because of that difference 



EVOLUTION IN ETHICS 33 



negative the validity and utility of astron- 
omy. The truth, it seems to me, is that the 
ideal as an eternal principle is a unit. It is 
the goal of all moral strivings to find which 
the several systems grope their way along in 
the darkness or twilight, now and then catch- 
ing glimpses of it as it flashes like a streak 
of lightning before their gaze. The result 
is that at different times and on different 
occasions it has been seen from different per- 
spectives, and the accounts when recorded 
register these differences. Theories of ethics 
are not compartments of water-tight opinions 
each hermetically sealed from, and absolute- 
ly independent of, the other. They are rath- 
er modes of viewing the ideal of perfection, 
that ultimate desideratum of human con- 
sciousness. By a process of deduction the 
one may be drawn from the other. Concen- 
tration upon one aspect of the ideal and de- 
veloping that aspect by following out its re- 
lations ad infinitum — if such a faculty of 
synthesization were granted to any single in- 
dividual — -would result in a perfect moral 
code, a code comprehending all that is both 
explicit and implicit in the separate theories. 



34 ADEQUATE NORM 



Variations are the result of over-emphasis 
on particular points with a corresponding 
overlooking of what would seem to be non- 
essentials. There are striking discrepancies 
between the ethics of early Christianity and 
that of modern thinkers. This is generally 
admitted. But why these discrepancies? 
The former presents with telling force the 
worth of the individual and stresses personal 
purity; the latter, seizing upon a phase of 
what was left in the background, brings it 
into light and prominence. It sees in the 
individual a spirit indispensable to the com- 
pleteness of the social organism and it eval- 
uates him accordingly. The former preached 
personal duties ; the latter while not putting 
the ban on personal, stresses social duties. 
Certain aspects of the ideal have been brought 
to light in the Brahmin, certain others in the 
Greek, certain others in the Mohammedan, 
type, etc., and certain others we may fairly 
say have not yet been developed and brought 
to light. The several theories of ethics from 
the point of view of evolution are not dis- 
crepant but supplementary. It is simply the 
growing complications in the phenomenon 



EVOLUTION IN ETHICS 35 



of life, and the differences in the point of 
view of ethical approaches to life's problems 
that aggravate the sense of variation. 

There is always the tendency in thought 
to swing, like a pendulum, from one point to 
its opposite by mutual reaction. In the do- 
main of ethics this is best illustrated by the 
conflict between Egoism and Altruism. 
When one reads the two chapters, "Egoism 
vs. Altruism" and "Altruism vs. Egoism," 
in Mr. Spencer's "Data of Ethics," the im- 
pression one gets is that there is no possibil- 
ity of harmony. But the mere fact that the 
one is to some extent the cause of the other, 
having given spur to its outgrowth, is proof 
sufficient that there is some tangent. Mod- 
ern ethics has discovered the tangent and 
healed the breach. 

Closely allied to this thought is that of 
displacement. Theories are more or less 
propounded in lieu of existing ones, and the 
idea of displacement tends to magnify varia- 
tions which are often merely conventional. 

Again, there is the objection that each 
great teacher of ethics claimed that his sys- 
tem would stand universal application, 



36 ADEQUATE NORM 



whereas the historic fact is that no system is 
so recognized on all hands, hence, ethical 
theory is untrustworthy. The issue hangs 
in this case on the matter of interpretation. 
The ideal is conceived in this way by one and 
in that by another. The standard valid for 
the one he calls universal, and that valid for 
the other he calls likewise. Now, the con- 
cept "universal," like every other concept, has 
been undergoing changes in the breadth of 
its application. As no human — or rather 
humanitarian — consideration was extended 
to members of a foreign clan, primitive man 
looked upon his own borderlines as the end 
of his universe. Even in classic days the 
City-State of Greece constituted the whole 
cosmic horizon of her sons. It represented 
for them their "universe." "The social 
philosophy of each nation," says Dr. Patten, 
"began with generalizations about local con- 
ditions. They were transformed into uni- 
versal philosophies without any adequate 
survey of the larger field to which they were 
applied."* It is only in comparatively re- 
cent days that people have become aware 

*The Social Basis of Religion," p. 230. 



EVOLUTION IN ETHICS 37 



that their opinions are precious rather than 
absolute, this being due to some extent at 
least to the breadth of meaning which the 
term universal has gradually come to ac- 
quire. 

But the objection has another defect. It 
can not stand general application itself. An 
hypothesis is made in physical science and 
its maker is sure that it embodies an eternal 
and objective truth. Sooner or later, how- 
ever, a rival appears making the same tacit 
claims to exclusive acceptation. If our ideas 
and perceptions conspire to give strength 
and force to the new hypothesis it will be- 
come inevitable and necessary for us. We 
shall then condemn the old hypothesis, not 
indeed for having been an hypothesis, but 
for having been a false and artificial one — 
not following naturally out of facts nor lead- 
ing to satisfactory reactions upon them. 
And yet we do not condemn the only means 
by which we do arrive at valid acquaintances 
with the laws of the physical world. These 
individual theories were valid in their day, 
for they followed necessarily out of the facts 
which were then current coin. But as rival 



38 ADEQUATE NORM 



theories arose and lent more objective satis- 
faction to our experiences they appealed with 
stronger force while their predecessors fell 
into disrepute. Such is the regular order of 
finite things. 

Many there are who believe that the Eng- 
lish language is destined eventually to be- 
come the common language of the world, and 
many who do not, have championed the cause 
of Esperanto in the effort to attain lin- 
guistic universality. But if such persons 
would reflect that language is merely an 
artificial means to the communication of 
thought; that words and phrases are simply 
instruments used to place the auditor into an 
attitude corresponding with a certain idea 
in the mind of the speaker; that every hin- 
drance to the auditor's realizing of the atti- 
tude of the speaker means, to that extent, an 
impediment to comprehension; and that as 
thought changes its vehicle of expression 
must also change, they would soon see that 
language, a plastic art, becomes obsolete 
with years and words and phrases lose their 
suggestive powers so that the ideas they once 
expressed can no longer be incarnated by 



EVOLUTION IN ETHICS 39 



their repetition. The Greek language with 
its adaptability and wonderful lucidity as a 
medium of thought transmission was once 
expected to become world-wide, but today it 
takes one with a good classical education to 
catch the full force of the meaning of its 
w r ords or to think in Greek. Greek is no 
more at the command of the masses. Yet 
no one condemns the most general means 
by which thought finds its concretion. Eth- 
ical theories, hypotheses, and languages are 
nothing more than plastic images envisaging 
eternal principles, but they in and of them- 
selves are not eternal principles. Wisdom 
is viewed from many and varied perspectives 
but in essence it remains a unit. The wis- 
dom of Socrates was the wisdom of the mar- 
ket-place; the wisdom of Aristotle was that 
of the academy. This does not mean that 
there are two kinds of wisdom, but simply 
two modes of conceiving the same wisdom. 
As was said before, it is only in a limited 
sense that one can speak of a universal sys- 
tem, namely, in so far as there are certain 
fundamental similarities in the nature of all 
human beings. But then its rules must be 



40 ADEQUATE NORM 



adapted to specific historic conditions of life 
before they can be instrumental in directing 
conduct. 

The evolutionary theory gives the rational 
solution to the problem. Surveying the field 
with the instruments of the evolutionist one 
sees morality rising out of a maze of in- 
stincts, passions and desires, slowly yet none 
the less surely gaining consciousness in vol- 
umes that increase as it rises. From this 
point of view ethical evolution is the register 
of the effects of the reaction of economic, po- 
litical and intellectual evolution upon the 
feelings and sensations of society. But 
while it was first the consequence, in process 
of time this consequence reacted with casual 
qualities on its first movers even as the child 
reacts on the life of the parent. And so in 
the higher stages of civilization morality 
comes to be consciously pursued as an end 
in itself. 

The changing conditions of experience, 
therefore, furnish stimulus and material for 
ethical theories and also give them their 
particular form and peculiar characteristics. 
Civilization and history are in reality the 



EVOLUTION IN ETHICS 41 



objectification of our social and ethical con- 
sciousness. But civilization and history are 
in perpetual flux and ethics in the interest of 
conformity must manifest this flux also. 
The whole cosmic system, physical, mental, 
moral, is subject to the evolutionary process. 
But "process" suggests movement. Of 
course from the viewpoint of value move- 
ment may be regressive at times, but such is 
the exception and not the general rule. At 
any rate movement is suggestive of contin- 
uity and continuity has for its basis the idea 
of unity. Variations in ethical theories are, 
therefore, theoretical indexes of epochs or 
stages in the process of evolution in ethics. 
They are delineations — sometimes clearer 
and sometimes darker — of the great end in 
view. 



CHAPTER 3. 



THE FINALITY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 

The point is now reached when a summary 
of the foregoing study may be made and an 
answer to our question given. We showed 
that a universal system can only be possible 
if built upon a recognition of the funda- 
mental similarity of human nature; and we 
stated that such being the case its principles 
must be adaptable to specific historic condi- 
tions so as to be workable. We also spoke 
in general terms of the unity and versatility 
of the ethics of Christianity. On these 
grounds we propose to base our conclusion 
that the ethics of Jesus satisfies the demands 
of that canon which will be universally ac- 
credited. Dr. Newman Smyth finds the ele- 
ments of the accredited norm, which he holds 
to be the Christian norm, in the three qual- 
ities of extension, comprehension, and ab- 



FINALITY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 43 



soluteness.* No other norm can lay claims 
to all these qualities at once. "The unity 
and the variety which characterized the 
preaching of Christianity from the very first 
constituted the secret of its fascination and a 
vital condition to its success," says Har- 
nack.f And Christianity has never lost 
these characteristics; neither are there any 
indications that it ever shall. With a persist- 
ency and a courage like unto a regiment fight- 
ing for a principle and not a pastime Chris- 
tianity has always asserted its confession of 
faith, viz. : There is one God of heaven and 
earth and the will of God as exemplified in 
Jesus Christ our Lord and Helper can and 
will be done on earth as it is in heaven, pro- 
vided that we accept His proffered aid and 
strive to live in conformity to His spirit. 
This is its unity. Dr. Patten, in putting up 
a plea for a social restatement of the terms 
of Christianity so as to effect its moderniza- 
tion, enumerates ten fundamental doctrines 
expressed in social phraseology. It may be 
of some interest to compare them with their 



*Christian Ethics, p. 140. 
tVol. 1, p. 84. 



44 ADEQUATE NORM 



theological counterparts of the first three 
centuries. We follow Harnack, who does 
not even profess to be giving an exhaustive 
summary : 



Patten: Social Basis, 
etc., p. 4. 

1. The doctrine of one 
Supreme God. 

2 and 3. The doctrine of 
the fall of man or of so- 
cial degeneration; the 
doctrine of regeneration 
or the reincorporation of 
social outcasts into so- 
ciety. 

4. The doctrine of per- 
sonal uplift. 

5 and 7. The doctrine of 
progress through peace 
and love. The doctrine of 
service. 

6. The doctrine of the 
Messiah, or lofty, inspir- 
ing leadership. 



8. The doctrine of social 
responsibility. 

9. The doctrine of per- 
sonal responsibility. 

10. The doctrine that 
the wages of sin is death. 



Harnack: Miss. and 
Exp. of Xty., Vol. 1, p. 31. 

The preaching of God 
the Father Almighty. 

The gospel of a Saviour, 
and of salvation; of re- 
demption and the new 
creation. 



The message of man be- 
coming God. 

The gospel of love and 
charity. 



The preaching of God's 
Bon, the Lord Jesus Christ. 
The religion of the spirit 
and power; of moral earn- 
estness. 

The religion of author- 
ity and of unlimited faith. 

The religion of reason 
and of enlightened under- 
tsanding. 

The preaching of the 
resurrection [from death, 
the wages of sin]. (Brac- 
keted words are mine.) 



Sixteen centuries have not altered its fun- 
damental unity; yet, because of its versatil- 
ity it has kept pace with changing conditions 
of life and maintained its fascination. To 



FINALITY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 45 



quote again from Harnack,* "This church 
labored at her mission in the second half of 
the third century, and she won the day. But 
had she been summoned to the bar and asked 
what right she had to admit these novelties, 
she could have replied, 'I am not to blame. 
I have only developed the germ which was 
planted in my being from the very first/ " 
Still Harnack sounds a note of warning. He 
says: "But the reasons for the triumph of 
Christianity in that age are no guarantee 
for the permanence of that triumph through- 
out the history of mankind. Such a triumph 
rather depends upon the simple elements of 
the religion, on the preaching of the living 
God as the Father of men, and on the repre- 
sentation of Jesus Christ. For that very 
reason it depends also on the capacity of 
Christianity to strip off repeatedly such a 
collective syncretism and unite itself to fresh 
coefficients. " But modern Christianity has 
no fear of this warning for the conditions 
of her success mentioned are precisely the 
things she busies herself in carrying out to- 
day. She still takes over, baptizes, and as- 

*P. 317. 



46 ADEQUATE NORM 



similates the best products of every age, 
thereby making them her own, and she gives 
the same answer to any criticism that ven- 
tures to question her right. And as she 
does these things, she correspondingly casts 
off the grave-clothes of the past. But Har- 
nack is optimistic in spite of the warning, for 
he continues: "The Reformation made a 
beginning in this direction." What he says 
the Reformation began we say succeeding 
years have continued. Therefore we feel 
safe in maintaining the permanence of her 
triumph throughout the history of mankind. 
As preachers of the ethics of Jesus we are 
entirely within our right when we marshal 
all available forces, whatever may be their 
sources, to fight the battle for God and the 
world, provided that these forces are in har- 
mony with the spirit of the Master. 

There are two statements from the pen of 
Dr. Lyman Abbott which we can not refrain 
from quoting in this connection. They are 
to be found in the "Outlook," the first for 
August 3, 1911, under the title, "De- 
mocracy in Religion," and the second, for 
December 9, 1911, under the title, "The Spirit 



FINALITY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 47 



of the Master." They read: "The life of 
Cod in the soul of man is not only for priests 
and prophets. It does not bloom alone under 
church roofs. It grows and blooms and fruits 
in all our common tasks. It is the heart of 
Moses the statesman and of Bezaleel the 
artisan and of Joshua the soldier, of David 
the singer, of Isaiah the preacher, and of 
Paul the missionary. It was manifested in 
the life of Jesus Christ and in every act of 
His life . . . for religion is love, serv- 
ice, and sacrifice ; and it is, or may be, shown 
equally by the child in the home, the artisan 
in his workshop, the guest in the festive 
party, the preacher in his pulpit, the doctor 
in the sick-room, the merchant in his store, 
the cook in her kitchen." "We all agree 
that the world is so great that men in differ- 
ent positions and men of different tempera- 
ments and different capacities will see differ- 
ent aspects of it. But we seem to think that 
the Maker of the world is so small that we 
can see Him alike, and whoever do not see in 
Him what we see in Him is an unbeliever. 
. . . The spirit of Christ is Christianity. 
It was the spirit of consecration to a great 



48 ADEQUATE NORM 



cause and courage in prosecuting it; it was 
a spirit of sympathy with men and with 
all sorts and conditions of men; it was a 
spirit of forgetfulness of self and service 
of others; it was a spirit of companionship 
with the Father's will; in brief, it was the 
spirit of love, service, and sacrifice. Who- 
ever is dominated and directed in his life by 
this spirit of love, service, and sacrifice, is a 
Christian." An ethic that is rooted and 
grounded in this spirit, and that finds free 
translation into each and every ramification 
of human endeavor, if only it be utilized, must 
necessarily be the ultimate standard of moral 
adjustment. The ethics of Christianity, 
then, is the one, supreme, and final guide of 
human conduct. 



PART II. 

THE PROBLEM OF ETHICS. 



CHAPTER 1. 



AN ETHICAL POSTULATE : FREEDOM AND 
RESPONSIBILITY. 

The ethics of Jesus can not be considered 
in isolation from its theological presupposi- 
tions. The fact of the being of God; the 
Son as the incarnation of the Divine idea; 
the fact of reconciliation and atonement, 
must all be reckoned with if one's aim were 
directed towards a synthetic presentation of 
the mind of Christ in its bearings on the 
problems of life. These are all taken for 
granted here. There is one point, however, 
philosophic more so than theological, which 
car ethic presupposes, and which, because 
it is so often strenuously assailed if not cat- 
alogued with noli me tangere problems, we 
may not pass over without some formal men- 
tion. It is the fundamental postulate of the 
freedom of the will. 

"Man is capable," says J. C. Murray, "of 



52 ADEQUATE NORM 



proposing to himself ends in life, and of di- 
recting his conduct with a view to the at- 
tainment of these ends." Will is the ulti- 
mate fact, the irreducible datum in the per- 
sonality, an energy working intelligently and 
with purposive intent. Hume, in one of his 
characteristic moods of omniscience — moods 
when with ready ease he could assume the 
role of the superman and penetrate into the 
inscrutable ! said, "Though man, in truth, is a 
necessary agent, having all his actions de- 
termined by fixed and immutable laws, yet, 
this being concealed from him, he acts with 
the conviction of being a free agent." The 
idea of the freedom of the will is, therefore, 
a delusion! And this conclusion has been 
launched by some of the leading minds of 
the world. Prof. Santayana asserts that 
"men, like all things else in the world, are 
products and vehicles of natural energy, and 
their operation counts. But their conscious 
will, in its moral assertiveness, is merely a 
sign of that energy and of that will's event- 
ual fortune. . . . Attention is utterly 
powerless to change or create its objects in 
either respect; it rather registers without 



AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 53 



surprise — for it expects nothing in particu- 
lar — and watches eagerly the images bub- 
bling up in the living mind and the processes 
evolving there. ... When the natural 
order lapses, if it ever does, not mind or will 
or reason can possibly intervene to fill the 
chasm — -for these are parcels and expres- 
sions of the natural order — but only nothing- 
ness or pure chance."* Formidable a foe 
as this dictum seems on casual observation 
to be, it is not charged with much grave 
danger when clearly understood. By main- 
taining with a laudable consistency his 
naturalistic monism, Santayana sees all 
existence summed up in Nature — mind, will, 
reason, consciousness, are all parcels and 
expressions of the natural order. Nature 
is all and moves all, and even though the 
conscious will must have a share in the grand 
panorama, being simply a "parcel and ex- 
pression," all credit in the last analysis must 
be given to Nature. We say it is not quite 
as formidable as it appears to be, because no 
one is bound to pin hfe faith in the kind of 
monistic philosophy on which it is based. 



♦Reason in Common Sense, p. 215ff. 



54 ADEQUATE NORM 



By limiting the application of the term "Na- 
ture" to one and only one aspect of the uni- 
versal order, one can readily dissociate the 
conscious will from the aspect thus circum- 
scribed giving it a right to existentiality of 
its own. But (and here the problem really 
begins) is the will thus severed from its 
bondage a mere bystander, observing, but 
absolutely impotent to interfere with, or con- 
trol, or direct, the process of events, as Hux- 
ley asserts? This parallelistic type of 
thought is the one that is charged with 
danger, for it leads logically to a withdrawal 
of the distinction between right and wrong, 
and calls a halt upon moral strivings. We 
can not differentiate between the sum of our 
activities, assigning certain ones exclusviely 
to natural coincidences in space and all not 
therein contained to mind not in space and 
independent, therefore, of mechanical forces. 
An object is set in motion by some mechan- 
ical agency, for vividness, let us suppose 
that the object is a mechanic tumbling from 
a broken scaffold. A conscious individual 
realizes from experience what must ensue- — 
all indications pointing in that direction— 



AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 55 



mechanically so determined; but believing 
that hope is lost only with the extinction of 
life he springs forward and meets the falling 
man with a violent push forward and there- 
by breaks the intensity of the gravitative 
motion and effects for our mechanic a new 
lease of life, What is the role of the con- 
scious will in this case? Has it not directed 
a motion? Did it not call to its service a 
counter energy at the very moment this en- 
ergy was needed to interfere with and di- 
rect that motion which was moving in a 
direction with which it did not approve? 
But behold, we have referred to the will as 
"directing" motion ! That is, the language of 
experience, not of science, comes the objec- 
tion. But does not experience have as good 
a right to its convictions as does science? 
This is none other than the long-drawn con- 
flict between the Parallelist and the Inter- 
actionist. The former contends that his 
scientific instincts inform him that there is 
no causal relation between spacial and non- 
spacial events, while the latter asserts that 
experience and common sense point to the 
reasonableness of some causal relationship 



56 ADEQUATE NORM 



between the two. Now science rejects the 
causal influence of the conscious will in inter- 
est of the theory of the conservation of en- 
ergy. She holds as a fundamental article of 
her creed that the total quantity of energy 
in the universe of physical realities must be 
constant. But may not energy exist in asso- 
ciation with consciousness as well as in asso- 
ciation with matter? In the former case, to 
be sure, we have no means whereby to meas- 
ure it for it eludes the physical sense, but the 
inference that it is there is a valid one, never- 
theless. Granted the conservation of energy 
in the physical world,* be it remembered that 
the total energy of the universe is infinite, 
and the likelihood is that one form of energy 
changes into the other and vice versa as or- 
der requires ; but since energy is infinite no 
difference in its physical expression is there- 
by evidenced. •: 

It is quite impossible to conduct social re- 
lationships without practical acknowledg- 
ment of free-will and responsibility. This 
acknowledgment is tacitly made even by 

♦Sir Oliver Lodge, a good physicist, is not willing to 
grant it. 



AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 57 



those who theoretically reject it. Huxley, 
who asserted that the will is simply a specta- 
tor, is the same one who in his definition of 
education says that it is "the instruction 
of the intellect in the laws of Nature, under 
which name I include not merely things and 
their forces, but men and their ways; and 
the fashioning of the affections and the will 
into an earnest and loving desire to live in 
harmony with these laws." Now, granted 
the existence of the desire, if there is no 
power resident in the affections and the will 
to effect the desire, what purpose does the 
desire serve? That Providence which per- 
mitted the birth of desire must have accom- 
plished a sorry task if it left no means where- 
by to gratify that desire ! The child desires 
to catch the rainbow, but for the want of 
power to do so, he resigns in disappointment 
and despair. Does Providence thus leave 
the sons of men with their valid desires as 
impossible to realize as the rainbow to the 
child? When Bergson remarked that "pure 
reasoning needs to be supervised by common 
sense, which is an altogether different 



58 ADEQUATE NORM 



thing/'* he gave expression to a note of ad- 
vice that may well be taken by scientist and 
philosopher and all thinking men alike. Chris- 
tian ethics without dwelling in the tent of 
any particular type of philosophic or scien- 
tific thought, that is, refusing to be sectarian, 
but simply utilizing their best products as 
instruments for the application of its teach- 
ing, just states its postulates and then veri- 
fies them by their successful handling of the 
problems of life. 

A, B. D. Alexander says, "Every human 
being, simply because he is such, possesses 
freedom of will, the right to be himself /'f for 
unless this were so there would be no ground 
on which to rest motive, and motive is the 
evaluator of conduct. On page 80, the same 
author, in summing up St. Paul's teaching 
on the will, says : "Paul presupposes the ac- 
countability of man. This is an assumption, 
not of Pauline ethic alone, but of all ethic. 
Unless man is in some sense free to choose 
and is responsible for his actions, his life has 
really no ethical value. A science of ethic 



* Creative Evolution. 
fEthics St. Paul, p. 325. 



AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 



59 



implies that no individual act is necessitated. 
We could not treat man as responsible, and 
still less as culpable, if at any single point 
he were forced into wrong-doing. Freedom 
of will in the practical sense in which all 
men understand it, is a necessary postulate 
of Christian as of all genuine ethic." "Paul 
is really the great champion of human free- 
dom, the preacher of individual responsibil- 
ity. . . . Upon this truth, which shines 
forth on every page of his letters, his whole 
Christology is built, and his entire ethical 
teaching is based.":*: "If you had asked an 
ancient, what is the highest good or chief 
end of man? he would probably have an- 
swered, 'happiness.' If you had asked Paul, 
he would have emphatically replied, 'to do 
God's will/ " On page 143f , we find : "If, 
therefore, the motive power of the Christian 
ethical life is the spirit of Christ, it must not 
be conceived as operating by an irresistible 
necessity. It must rather be thought of as 
a power which is to be appropriated by 
man's moral nature and conditioned by his 
free action. In his ethical teaching at least, 



$Pp. 84 and 85. 



60 ADEQUATE NORM 



Paul is no determinist. As an evangelist he 
is constrained to reckon on the liberty of his 
hearers. His missionary zeal and fiery elo- 
quence would have no meaning if he did not 
believe that men were free to accept or re- 
fuse his message." "But" — I thing I hear 
the objection — "are you not under a delu- 
sion? In freeing yourself from bondage to 
sin, have you actually secured liberty? Have 
you not in reality merely effected a transfer 
of allegiance? No longer a subject of 
meaner impulses, are you not now the slave 
of your clear ideas of truth, goodness, and 
beauty — of moral laws?"* All this we ad- 
mit. St. Paul admitted it, for he said of 
himself that he was doulos Iesou Xristou. 
Jesus Christ admitted it, for he bids us "take 
my yoke upon you." But "whoever loves 
Truth must remain her faithful friend." 
We hold that the empirical man is not the 
true man, but the man dwarfted by bondage 
to that which is not a part of his essential 
self. We hold that the man who brings him- 
self under the power of Jesus Christ is the 



*See Dr. DuBois : Psychic Treatment of Nervous Dis- 
orders, Chapters 4, 5 and 6. 



AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 61 



man who lives his own best life and is thus 
in possession of his best faculties. To be a 
slave of Christ and to be personally free are 
one and the same proposition. St. Paul, who 
said he was the slave of Jesus Christ, also 
said, "The Spirit himself beareth witness 
with our spirit, that we are children of God : 
and if children, then heirs ; heirs of God, and 
joint-heirs with Christ ;" "If the Son, there- 
fore, shall make you free, ye shall be free 
indeed." 

Dr. Patten's analysis of the matter is as 
clear as it is profound. He says,f "There 
are two kinds of determinism so prominent 
that they can not fail to attract attention. 
Biological determinism covers the whole 
range of heredity. Organic change follows 
definite laws, and its principles are capable 
of definite enunciation. . . . Were all 
characters natural and all acts instinctive, 
there would be no field left indeterminate by 
biologic evolution. The contrast of natural 
and acquired characters is a recognition that 
there are many acts not directly controlled 
by heredity. Acquired characters must of 

fThe Social Basis of Religion, p. 138, f£. 



62 ADEQUATE NORM 



necessity have some other source and they 
grow in importance as organisms rise in the 
scale of being. They indicate some form of 
external determinism which supplements or 
displaces the biologic determinism of lower 
organisms. . . . The principle of econ- 
omy is back of all acquired traits, activities 
and knowledge. Their force, however ex- 
erted, makes the economic determinism that 
stands in contrast with the biologic determ- 
inism imposed by heredity. The two are 
dominant forces in man's determinate life; 
but they are not the sole factors. The third 
is the will. Its workings can not be under- 
stood until the earlier and more objective 
forms of control have their activity ex- 
plained. To call an act one of will when the 
forces of biologic selection or economic pres- 
sure are operative, confuses what otherwise 
would be a plain problem. If these two 
great forces cover the whole field, there is no 
will in any sense worth investigating. The 
will is a reality when there are acts free from 
the pressure of either of these forces. If we 
can get beyond heredity and beyond the pres- 
sure of economic events there is a reality to 



AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 63 



freedom that is worth a struggle to realize. 
. . . The best that could come from com- 
plete biologic and economic determinism 
would be a static condition. We must look 
elsewhere for the principles of progress. 
These lie in some indeterminate field outside 
the province of these two great forces. . . . 
Indeterminate action is thus an essential ele- 
ment in normal growth. Without it, the 
organism degenerates either in a morbid, or 
in a senile direction. It gives the partially 
formed and more plastic higher powers a 
function in the place of what would other- 
wise be mere waste. This office of using up 
surplus energy and thus promoting the nor- 
mal activity of lower parts is the primary 
function of the will. ... It is the telic 
tendencies of surplus energy that produce 
epoch-making social changes. . . . Free- 
dom is not the power to do what one pleases, 
but the power to throw off depression and 
abnormalities. It demands not the absence 
of control over individual acts, but the pow- 
er to a thorough regeneration. Volition, 
rightly understood, is the antecedent of re- 
generation. This reminds us of Principal 



64 ADEQUATE NORM 



Forsyth's remark that "wills are not forces 
so much as elective and directive powers over 
forces. If will be a force, it is a force that 
differs from all others in choosing them, aim- 
ing them, co-ordinating and concentrating 
them."* But to continue from Dr. Patten: 
"Volition is more than activity. It is activ- 
ity among plastic cells forced on by the ac- 
tion of surplus energy. By making will the 
psychic antecedent of regeneration instead of 
an immaterial entity, religion avoids an im- 
passable philosophic barrier, and realizes an 
opportunity to verify its claims by evidence 
that no careful thinker will reject. . . . 
The moral education of a man might be com- 
plete and his social sentiments strong. Yet, 
if he had no surplus energy to reinforce 
them, they would be powerless in a conflict 
with impulse and passion." 

Now this postulate of Christian ethics, be 
it remembered, was the central postu- 
late of Christ's life and doctrine. The 
gospel of His living and teaching is 
permeated with the "haunting idea" 
of the freedom of the will. Free in 



Person & Place of Jesus Christ, p. 345. 



AN ETHICAL POSTULATE 65 



the life lived after His will which is the 
will of God, it was His supreme desire that 
mankind should experience the life of free- 
dom which was His to give and which could 
be received only by a harmonious adjustment 
of their wills to the will of God. And so in 
His model prayer He incorporated the idea : 
"Thy will be done as in heaven so also upon 
the earth." Man's will is free to choose the 
right or choose the wrong. To choose the 
wrong he becomes a slave and wharps and 
destroys his manhood. To choose the right 
he effects his emancipation and directs his 
manhood along the path which leads to its full 
and most fruitful development. It is not of 
man's nature to be bad and at the same time 
normal. In the highest sense normality, 
Tightness, freedom, and God-likeness are 
synonymous terms. 



CHAPTER 2. 



THE TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 

We must now take note of some of those 
salient factors in modern life that thwart 
and vitiate man's ideal adjustment to his 
fellows and to cosmic forces, thereby cur- 
tailing the full expression and experience of 
the best type of life. Stated in general 
terms there are three, namely, economic, so- 
cial, and personal. 

1. Economic. 

It has been said — and that truly — that in 
this country, at least, there is a surplus of 
the physical necessities of life, and yet each 
citizen is not a sharer of the minimum quota 
of his would-be allotment, to say nothing of 
the surplus. The equilibrium that ought to 
exist between actual need and actual posses- 
sion to meet that need falls lamentably short 

66 



TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 67 



of being attained. There are those who 
have more than need calls for while there 
are others who eke out a bare existence or 
are brought under the pressure of a deficit 
which ultimately spells physical death. Nu- 
merous are the explanations given respect- 
ing the cause or causes : Exploitation 
through partisan legislation or otherwise; 
the too rapid increase of machine work sup- 
plementing human agency and the element 
of personality and personal interest ; the 
utilization of child and female labor which 
supplants that of men, thereby depriving the 
latter of the occasion for employment, de- 
pleting the moral and physical energies of 
the former, and filling the coffers of employ- 
ers who secure cheaper labor; the uneven 
balance between the amount of output and 
amount of receipts for same on the part of 
the laborer, receipts often falling below the 
mark demanded by living conditions ; the re- 
sults of "obvious economic laws" which have 
caused the development and fostered the 
growth of large business units with a corre- 
sponding inequality of opportunity — uneven 
competition, etc. Dr. Paulsen, in his "Sys- 



68 ADEQUATE NORM 



terns of Ethics," sums the matter up briefly 
thus: "The form in which the social ques- 
tion now comes up is the inner dissolution 
of the body of the people through the pro- 
gressive proletarizing of a constantly in- 
creasing portion of the population on the one 
side, and through the corresponding over- 
fattening on the other side. On the one side 
the personal spiritual-moral life falls to the 
ground through impoverishment and isola- 
tion, on the other side through idleness and 
luxuriousness." Omitting the latter for the 
time being, the problem facing the "sub- 
merged tenth" may well be summed up in 
the word "poverty." Now what are the con- 
sequences attendant upon this monster, 
"Poverty?" They are many and grievous. 
Poverty gives birth to the tenement-house. 
And Dr. Moskowitz tells both what the tene- 
ment-house is and what it is not in the fol- 
lowing few words, he asks: "Are these 
tenement-houses homes? Are they not, after 
all, merely places to eat and sleep in? Are 
they the spiritual anchorages that homes 
ought to be? Do they give the members of 
the family the opportunity to enjoy free and 



TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 69 



intimate experiences? No; the tenements 
are not homes. That is why boys and girls 
go wrong. Dark hallways are not places for 
courting, nor crowded streets good play- 
grounds. Congestion is a fundamental evil 
which causes juvenile crime, high death rate, 
and immorality."* But the poor live in 
them because they are poor and can do no 
better. The industrial pressure which de- 
pletes the body and fails to nourish the soul 
drives the poor and unfortunates to all kinds 
of makeshifts for palliatives. But they reap 
discomfort. And some who fail to find 
healthy solace eventually betake themselves 
to the saloons or gambling dens where they 
think to bury the sense of pressure under an 
avalanche of alcohol, or to procure money by 
a short and easy method only to find them- 
selves sevenfold the more under the cruel 
grip of misfortune. In this way pest-houses 
originate and criminal-breeding places are 
established. Poverty drives children of ten- 
der years who, by right, should be in the 
school-room or on the recreation ground, and 
women who by right, ought to be in the 



*In the Outlook for Oct. 26, 1912. 



70 ADEQUATE NORM 



real sense mothers and home-makers, to be- 
take themselves to the mills and factories 
and other places of industry to work so as to 
help out the totally inadequate wages of the 
father or husband, who is the rightful bread- 
winner; nay, more, it reduces to practical 
servitude the helpless worker who has to toil 
over-hours through days and weeks and 
months and years, denying him the opportu- 
nity to cultivate the higher life of the spirit. 
Dr. Lyman Abbott writes: "Our Declara- 
tion of Independence says every man has a 
right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
piness ; but poverty denies all three of these 
rights." And he continues, "How shall the 
great wealth of a great nation be so dis- 
tributed that no man shall go hungry or cold 
or naked? k In my father's house,' said the 
prodigal son, 'there is bread enough and to 
spare.' America is your 'father's house,' 
and in America there is bread enough and to 
spare, and we, the intelligent, the educated, 
the thoughtful, and the comparatively well- 
to-do Americans, are ourselves guilty of our 
brother's blood if we do not see that society 
is so organized, not that all men shall have 



TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 71 



alike, but that all men .shall have enough to 
enable them to live in comfort and grow to 
manhood/'* 

This is the economic problem. Of course 
a large part of its solution devolves upon 
the State through its legislative and adminis- 
trative instruments ; but after all, legislation 
to be effective must be rooted in a high type 
of morality and social justice, and adminis- 
trative success must be backed by an awak- 
ened public conscience. The ethics of Chris- 
tianity are to supply these pre-conditions and 
if it can, successfully, then its success would 
be its own vindication. Because Jesus' aim 
was to strike at the very root of the matter 
He refrained from enacting specific legisla- 
tion, but instead He laid down the broad 
principles on which legislation should be en- 
acted and by which public conscience should 
be trained. "The heavenly Father knows 
His children have need of food and raiment, 
but just for that very reason men are not 
to make the search for them the chief end 
of life. A man's life does not consist in the 



*The Outlook for Oct. 19, 1912, An Adress at Clark Col- 
lege Commencement. 



72 



ADEQUATE NORM 



abundance of things that he possesses. The 
satisfaction not of these lower wants, but of 
those other and higher desires after truth 
and the higher verities and experiences of 
life, is to be the underlying motive in the new 
order of life. Men are not to be compelled 
to be good, but their desires are to lead them 
to goodness, or, if the desire be lacking, are 
to be convinced of the sin of the lack. Not 
obedience, but loving impulse, is the key to 
noble living. The members of this new so- 
ciety are to be friends, and conventional 
duties are no measure of what friendship 
may prompt." "Jesus gives a constitution, 
men can frame statutes."! The spirit of the 
Master must inspire the State and give it 
the correct insight with which to grapple 
successfully the economic issues of the day. 

2. Social. 

A healthy sign of the times is a world- 
wide .social discontent with a categorical im- 
perative on the part of all to unite for the 
purpose of devising ways and means, and 

tShailer Mathews, "The Social Teachings of Jesus," pp. 
183 and 212. 



TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 73 



the putting of them into practice, to quench 
this spirit. It must be subdued but its sub- 
jugation can not be effected by anodynes or 
opiates. The basis of the spirit of unrest 
must be discovered and the remedy applied 
to it. Materials may be drawn from every 
conceivable source in a discussion of this 
aspect of mal-adjustment, but as it is not 
the purpose of this essay to cover the whole 
field, just a few salient features of the prob- 
lem will be touched upon in order to a graph- 
ic presentation of its gravity. 

(a) International Relations: The rela- 
tionship at the present time existing between 
the nations is, to be sure, not motived by 
mutual hate, but it is far from the ideal of 
genuine friendliness. Mutual fear and sus- 
picion seem to be the dominant notion con- 
trolling the actions of the nations towards 
each other. One nation stands in 
dread of the possible aggressiveness of the 
other, and this fear finds expression in the 
common increase of armamentation. The 
prophecy of old that nations shall beat their 
swords into plow-shears and their spears in- 
to pruning-hooks falls far short even in these 



74 ADEQUATE NORM 



enlightened days of the twentieth century of 
its happy fulfillment. The solution of the 
problem must work along positive as well 
as negative lines. In addition to developing 
the sense that as war is hell so the prepara- 
tion for war is hell also there is need of a 
substitution for the appeal to armaments the 
appeal to reason based on the principle of 
universal brotherhood. The experiences of 
the day are enough to call forth the best 
efforts along these lines. Present happen- 
ings in the Balkan States demonstrate quite 
clearly the reason for the urgent call for 
amelioration and so do the war policies of 
the foremost nations. On page 5, volume 2, 
of those valuable books published by the 
"Men and Religion Movement," we find the 
following statement: "Back of the oppres- 
sive armaments of the modern world, which 
consume so many billions annually from the 
taxes and keep so many able-minded and 
able-bodied men in unproductive callings, is 
an unchristian patriotism that has not yet 
learned that a nation must love its neighbors 
as itself, that greed and aggression are as 
vicious in nations as in men, that national 



TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 75 



greatness consists solely in national service 
for the brotherhood of nations. Here, then, 
is a breeding-place of pestilence to be 
drained. Patriotism must cease to be a 
standing-pool bounded and confined by na- 
tional self-interest, and must be given an 
outlet in world-service and an inlet from the 
living water of the spirit of the Son of Man, 
the Prince of Peace. " This shows how an 
international fear economy is destructive of 
the true spirit of patriotism as well as sub- 
versive of the right channel in which the in- 
ternational wealth and brain and brawn 
should flow. If the energy of the nations is 
to be conserved and utilized for the bringing 
to pass of the reign of peace and love their 
fear and suspicion must give way to love and 
the confidence it engenders. 

No one agrees in every particular with the 
author of "The Great Analysis/' but surely he 
deserves serious attention when he proclaims 
that "the human intellect, organizing, order- 
bringing, must enlarge itself so as to em- 
brace, in one great conspectus, the problems 
not of a parish, or of a nation, but of the 
pendent globe;" and his suggestion that the 



76 ADEQUATE NORM 



controlling ideal of a "rational world-order" 
should be placed under the supervision of an 
"International College of Systematic Sociol- 
ogy"— "a conclave of representative investi- 
gators and thinkers, brought together, not 
by election, but by selection, from all quar- 
ters of the globe" — may be more than a 
dream. It may be a vision worthy the real- 
izing. 

(b) Racial Relations: Closely allied to 
International relation is the relation of the 
races of the world to each, other. In fact the 
solution of the one is, if not also the solution 
of the other, the enhancement thereof. The 
lesson the age needs to be taught on this 
score is the marvelous oneness of the human 
race. If heterogeniety in the superficial ex- 
teriors be the justification for the erection of 
absolute social barriers, it is so because of a 
total ignorance or denial of humanity's es- 
sential oneness. "The Christian church," 
says Prof. E. A. Steiner,* "may divide the 
human race into the undeveloped and the 
partially developed, but it cannot divide it 

*In an article on "The Church in Relation to the Immi- 
grant," Vol. 2, Men and Religion Series. 



TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 77 



by any arbitrary geographic line, nor by 
color, nor by speech into the good or bad, 
for the Christian there is only one race, all 
of it needing the grace of God to raise it to 
the ideals of the Christ, the perfect man. 
. . . It is easy, or comparatively easy, to 
love even our enemies when they smell of 
violets, but to act in our relationship with 
men as brothers who have eaten garlic, who 
have a different tint to their skin, a different 
crook to their nose, that's the difficult test 
we are facing . . . only as the church 
believes in this common kinship can it begin 
the task which is before it. Not only must 
the church change its mind about the new 
immigrant, but it must learn to practice at 
home the brotherhood it now professes. The 
church is facing a new test today, and that 
test is not theological; it is psychological. 
The question is not: Do we believe in God 
as the Father of mankind? this belief is to- 
day almost universal. Do we believe in 
Jesus, the Saviour of men? In varied de- 
grees and definitions the masses of religious 
men believe it. Do we believe in brother- 
hood? Yes. Do we practice it? That's 



78 ADEQUATE NORM 



the test — do we practice brotherhood?" 
What Prof. Steiner addresses to the church 
in particular, is what we address to the 
world in general — Does the world, the civil- 
ized world, at least, practice brotherhood? 
"But, ah!" comes the objection, "brother- 
hood emphasizes 'likeness,' but it overlooks 
or tries to deny 'unlikeness this is the 
shortsightedness of Christian ethics. Jesus 
teaches that we are to treat each other as 
equals, which is impossible." But listen to 
the response of Shailer Mathews,f "Jesus 
does not claim that men in the world today 
are physiologically equal. There are lame 
and halt. Nor are they mentally on equal- 
ity. There are men to whom one talent 
could be entrusted, and those to whom five 
and ten. Nor does Jesus so far fall into the 
class of nature philosophers as to teach that 
because men are to be brothers they are 
therefore to be twins. The equality of fra- 
ternity does not consist in duplication of 
powers, but in the enjoyment and the exer- 
cise of love. Further, according to the new 
social standard of Jesus two men are equal, 

t Social Teaching of Jesus, pp. 172 and 173. 



TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 79 



not because they have equal claims upon each 
other, but because they owe equal duties to 
each other. The gospel is not a Declaration 
of Rights, but a Declaration of Duties." 
Hence, "every barrier broken down between 
races, classes or languages leads to a blend- 
ing of the thought and ideas of the united 
group/' says Dr. Patten. Men may be broth- 
ers and society an all-embracing family, and 
these, without a sacrifice of individuality. 
We have made capital of diversity ; we need 
now to strees unity. 

(c) Civic Relations: In medical science 
Preventive Medicine has lately come into its 
own and has been assigned its rightful place 
in the galaxy of the healing art. The adage 
"an ounce of prevention is better than a 
pound of cure" has given up its hidden phil- 
osophy to the Medical Fraternity's use. Here 
is an example that the doctors of social 
science may well emulate. Their duty lies 
not solely in devising means to restore nor- 
mal social conditions when the balance is dis- 
turbed, but first and foremost in devising 
means that will prevent sub-normality. And 
in the new social unrest it must be acknowl- 



80 ADEQUATE NORM 



edged that this shifting of the scheme of at- 
tack is happily being made. What is most 
needed to give the effort that momentum it 
deserves and ought to have is a more scien- 
tific and vital co-operation on the part of the 
various agencies in the field. In the child 
there is a bundle of possibilities, which pos- 
sibilities, as the child grows in years are in 
proportionate degrees translated into actual- 
ities. As a general rule these innate possi- 
bilities when carefully looked after turn out 
to be qualities of good citizenship, civic as 
well as moral; when they are not carefully 
cultivated the reverse is often the case, how- 
ever. Since, then, the child of today is the 
citizen of tomorrow, the care taken of the 
child today will redown to the credit of to- 
morrow's citizenship. Education in the 
etymological sense of the term is the draw- 
ing forth of native possibilities to the point 
of actuality. This is why the education of 
youth is of such far-reaching importance. 
But education is inclusive. It has reference 
to the total life ; therefore, in the truest sense 
it is "moralwards" inclined. Just consider 
one aspect of it, viz. : Recreation. The 



TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 81 



child has possibilities for recreation and they 
clamor for articulation. "The boy does not 
play because he wants to; he plays because 
he has to." That is a part of the very fibre 
of his nature. In order to the correct artic- 
ulation of the recreational instinct, whole- 
some conditions must be created and careful 
methods of supervision instituted. In 
larger units of population the problem of 
playground accommodation for the child's 
health and amusement has presented itself 
as forcibly even as the problem of housing 
accommodation for the poor. And the mu- 
nicipal authorities and other charitable or- 
ganizations are to be duly commended for 
what they have done and are doing, and en- 
couraged for what they can still do. But 
here, as elsewhere, the distinctively moral 
side of the problem often eludes the best 
intentions while the physical side is yielding 
to the power which goes with adequate funds 
and established scientific laws. Our school- 
rooms and playgrounds are fast approaching 
the ideal, but the question as to what should 
be taught and how best to teach it ; how must 
plays and games be conducted and who are 



82 ADEQUATE NORM 



best fitted to direct them; how to moralize 
sport without emasculating it — this is the 
question our age must strive to answer. 

With growth and the enlarging of vision 
there is the advent of new social desires. 
The little child finds satisfaction in nursery 
tales and nursery games, but the adolescent 
youth can find no amusement in them strong 
enough to attract. If the recreational in- 
stinct is not more intensive it certainly be- 
comes more extensive. The social perspect- 
ive has now come to include numbers of 
children of like ages and desires along with 
the immediate members of the family. Where 
change takes place alteration in conditions to 
meet such change is in order. Hence there 
is a shifting of the scene from the nursery 
and kindergarten to the dance hall, the 
movies, the theaters, to music, to novels, to 
clubs, etc. And these all have their pur- 
pose to serve; but the great question is, do 
they serve their purpose well ? The popular 
dances are often barbarous and vulgar; the 
moving pictures, that great modern educa- 
tional power, quite frequently stoop to cater 



TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 83 



to the baser sentiments; the theaters often 
dispense mental and moral poison in dis- 
guise ; popular music is often harsh in sound 
and unwholesome in wording; while novels 
and other popular reading matter too fre- 
quently are not worth the paper on which 
they are printed. But if these agencies are 
to produce the best results, for they are in 
demand and will be used for good or ill, there 
is urgent need for their standardization; and 
the difficulty of the task is no argument 
against the undertaking of it. The question 
as to how the entente morale is to be duly 
developed furnishes this day and generation 
with a task which they dare not shirk. 

The first duty of the physician is to so 
direct the affairs of health as to prevent the 
assaults of disease; his second duty is to 
adopt therapeutic measures in cases of im- 
paired metabolism. Like the general he for- 
tifies the garrison against attack, but in case 
of attack he takes to the sword and gun. 
This is precisely the order the social worker 
follows. He first tries to prevent social de- 
generation; but, 



84 ADEQUATE NORM 



"If a frail sister slip, we must hold her; 

If a brother be lost in the strain 
Of the infinite pitfall of pain, 

We must love and lift him again/' 

So sings Corrine Robinson* and so must 
everyone act who has a burning zeal for hu- 
man well-being. We have in mind under 
this caption those who, through economic or 
social pressure, or both, are classified as the 
outcasts. I think it was St. Augustine who 
justified the existence of prostitution as a 
safeguard against the total contamination of 
society. I thing the Japanese government 
has legalized the existence of a class of pros- 
titues. At any rate, whether justified or 
legalized as an expediency those who consti- 
tute such a class are socially debarred from 
living contact and association with the 
"immuned." The discovery of their guilt, 
like the discovery of that of Cain of old, is 
followed by an immediate taboo on the part 
of society, and from that moment on they 
are left to their own fate as though they 
were "totally depraved." Jane Addams has 

*The Call to Brotherhood and Other Poems. 



TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 85 



said, "It is certainly easy to point out the 
moral and religious disaster which has re- 
sulted from her exclusion, fostering the 'I am 
holier than thou' attitude, the innermost 
canker of the spiritual life,"* and further, 
"But the effect of this impious contempt is 
not confined to legal enactment. It also be- 
comes registered in the ethical code of con- 
temporary society held by good women as 
well as men. Women, kindly towards all 
other human creatures, become hard and 
hostile to young girls, who, in evil houses, 
are literally beaten and starved by the dis- 
solute men whom they support. Kind- 
hearted women could not brook these things ; 
their hearts would break had they not been 
trained to believe that virtue itself demanded 
from them first ignorance and then harsh- 
ness. Their inherited fear of the harlot and 
terror lest she contaminate their daughters, 
may be traced in the caste basis of our so- 
cial amenities and in the lack of democracy 
and fellowship which so fatally narrows wo- 
men's interests. Yet the test comes to them 
none the less, for as all women fell in the 

♦Vol. 2, Men and Religion Series, p. 131. 



86 ADEQUATE NORM 



estimation of religious men, because they 
came to be looked upon as possible harlots, 
so may we not predict that women will never 
take a normal place in the moral life of so- 
ciety until they recognize as one of them- 
selves the very harlot, who, all unwittingly, 
has become the test of their spirituality, the 
touchstone of their purity ? As women were 
lowered in the moral scale because of their 
identification with her at the bottom of the 
pit, so they can not raise themselves, save as 
they succeed in lifting her with whose sins 
they are weighed."! The very core of social 
life is affected by this condition, and its ram- 
ifications are to be detected in every sphere 
of life's expression. When it is clearly un- 
derstood that this evil gives nourishment to 
the saloon and the gambler's den and that it 
fosters an illicit partnership between the po- 
lice and organized vice, as was brought to 
light in the Rosenthal murder and the Becker 
trial, and that the four are "literally at the 
base of the real administration of our cities," 
the problem assumes its truly stupendous 
proportions. Are these conditions to con- 

tlbid., pp. 135 and 136. 



TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 87 



tinue unnoticed, are they to be smothered 
over by public silence, are they to be con- 
demned and yet left to their own fate? De- 
cidedly not. It is the religious duty of 
thoughtful men and women to strive to right 
the awful wrong; for, no one embued with 
the spirit of the Master can ever feel satisfied 
until that state which affords to all the free- 
dom and the purity of the sons of God is 
present in our midst. 

But there is another social evil of the first 
magnitude which today clamors for adjust- 
ment. I speak of the problem of penology. 
It is true that the philosophy of imprison- 
ment based on retributive justice has become 
outworn and is being superseded by a phil- 
osophy of discipline; but discipline itself, as 
valuable as it is, must be coupled with an 
intent upon a thorough reformation, together 
with an impartation of high social ideals. 
It is a healthy omen that public conscience 
is being aroused and a sense of the se- 
riousness of the situation has made necessary 
the recourse to scientific measures in the 
effort to discover some adequate remedy. In 
the meantime such revelations as come from 



88 ADEQUATE NORM 



Donald Lowrie's, "My Life in Prison," and 
Hutchings Hapgood's article in the New 
York Globe, can not but hasten the searchers 
along in their great and difficult task. The 
latter's criticism on the present prison sys- 
tem are, to say the least, scathing. He says, 
"Prisons affect the health unfavorably. They 
affect the mind unfavorably. They affect 
the character unfavorably. They are bad in- 
dustrially and economically. They do not 
reform. They do not make better. They 
make the convicts worse. They make the 
keepers worse. They demoralize the com- 
munity. ... If we are interested in the 
building up of a better society we can not 
take hope away from any person; we can 
not tear down the health and character. We 
must build them up. Ask anybody who 
knows anything about prison whether health 
and character and fitness and sweetness and 
light and idealism are built up there. They 
will laugh or cry, in accordance with their 
specific character, at the absurdity of such 
a question." This arraignment is not ex- 
aggerated, therefore it can not be gainsaid 
that here is a situation which, until it is 



TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 89 



remedied, is a menace and an eye-sore to our 
Christian civilization. But Jesus Christ de- 
fined his mission in part as the preaching of 
glad tidings to the poor, the healing of the 
broken-hearted, the bringing of deliverance 
to captives and those under oppression. Such 
being the case, it may prove a fruitful under- 
taking to apply methods conforming to the 
spirit of His teaching to this and the other 
pressing social problems of the day. 

3. Personal. 

Under this caption the problem of sin is 
the burden of our discussion. "The thing 
I would not, that I do," was the plaintive 
lament of the apostle St. Paul, and so also is 
it the wail of the Christian consciousness. 
The economist, of course, would consider a 
discussion of this kind as futile. Sin, he 
would be inclined to say, is the result of ab- 
normal economic conditions removable with 
the reinstatement of normality. "To re- 
move the temptation, to sin means to do away 
with starvation, poverty, disease, over-work 
and bad conditions which depress workers 



90 ADEQUATE NORM 



and turn virtue into vice," says Dr. Patten, 
and, of course, the temptation being re- 
moved, sin vanishes with it. Temptation 
and its effect, sin, exist among the econom- 
ically sub-normal, but they are not solely 
confined to this class. There is also wicked- 
ness in high places. The social group that 
have all the necessities and consolations of 
life — that are above those external condi- 
tions named as the economic basis of sin — 
are not spotless. What causes a man or 
woman with all the accessories to a life of 
ease, happiness, contentment, yes and even 
service, to indulge in the subtler if not the 
open forms of crime and vice? and whence 
are the springs of their antecedents — temp- 
tations? Must the phenomenon be explained 
away by answering that vicariously they are 
experiencing the pressure which drives 
astray the social unfortunates? That the 
contagion is in the atmosphere and it grips 
them in its deadly grasp all unawares ? That 
"imaginative woe," to use Tennyson's 
phrase, may account partially, but it can not 
account entirely for such perversities, such 
moral turpitudes. The springs are more 



TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 91 



elemental than these; they are in the indi- 
vidual's will; they are subjective. But on 
the other hand there are not a few who fall 
within the radius of economic pressure and 
who bear their lot feeling confident in the 
faith that "tribulation worketh patience ; and 
patience, experience; and experience, hope/' 
and who would rather die martyrs to the 
cause of righteousness and personal purity 
than suffer their names to be in any way, or 
for whatever cause, associated with crime or 
vice. There are many prophets, abused and 
mal-treated by Jezebel who have not bent the 
knee to Baal. Economic pressure may be the 
occasion and in many cases the immediate 
cause of social disease; but it can not be 
looked upon as being the sole cause in all 
cases. The ultimate cause, ultimate because 
it is the cause of these second causes, is irre- 
ligion ; it is the refusal of men and society to 
live in conformity to the will of God; it is 
their refusal to articulate the Creator's 
ideal ; it is human will, not in harmony, but 
in conflict with Divine will. The whole em- 
phasis needs to be shifted. Sin is the root, 
not the fruit of mal-adjustment. So long 



92 ADEQUATE NORM 



as sin remains the problem stands unsolved ; 
the more thorough the victory over sin, the 
weaker will be the abnormal momentum ; and 
with the total overthrow of sin, normality is 
achieved. "It is not enough with Jesus," 
says Shailer Mathews,* "to improve the con- 
ditions of human life. The mere conquest of 
matter, the exploitation of natural resources, 
as seen clearly enough today, need not of 
necessity imply any essential advance in civ- 
ilization. To clothe a man and to feed him 
well, to enable him to build up great build- 
ings and establish large businesses, to enable 
an entire people so to develop its land and its 
mineral deposits as to become rich, may be 
the furtherest possible from building that 
person or that people into a more fraternal 
life. . . . But to bring the constructive 
forces of a man or a nation into subjection 
to lofty ideals ; to make that which is wrong 
hated and that which is good loved; so to 
transform and improve and ennoble a man 
that instead of seeking his own selfish inter- 
ests he will find his life by spontaneously 
losing it in the society of other lives about 

The Social Teaching of Jesus, pp. 207 and 208. 



TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 93 



him ; to develop a love for men because one is 
oneself a child of God; in a word, to make 
normal social life depends upon goodness — 
that is the fundamental position of Jesus. 
. . . To give large wages, to make the 
home more comfortable and happy, to see 
that the sanitary arrangements of the city 
and community are perfect, to provide a fair 
income, healthful food, good amusements, 
and all the other requirements of respect- 
able life today; to do this and let evolution 
do the rest — this is the position of more than 
one social teacher. But the imperfection 
that must needs be corrected, in the estima- 
tion of Jesus, was no change of birth or oc- 
cupation in life. The Pharisee was quite as 
ill as the harlot and the publican. The 
cause of all inequality and lack of fraternity 
is moral ; it is sin." 

What is sin? Hegel and those of his dis- 
ciples who remain faithful to him on this 
question explain it as being a negative mo- 
ment in the evolutionary progress toward the 
good or the Absolute Idea. It is therefore 
stripped of content and in spacial terms would 
be represented by a blank spot or a break at 



94 ADEQUATE NORM 



some point in a given line. But a negative 
moment is void of moral assets, consequent- 
ly, though sin may be unmoral, it is not im- 
moral, and culpability is an alien element 
that we need not reckon with. Equally as 
dangerous is the theory of sin promulgated 
by John Fiske. He describes it as an "in- 
dispensable part of the dramatic whole/' "a 
part and parcel of the uni verse."* Sin is 
a necessary play of opposites. To know the 
good, to be conscious of it, demands the ex- 
istence of evil with which to contrast it; 
to be conscious of color there must be a con- 
trast of colors ; "Without the element of an- 
tagonism there could be no consciousness and 
therefore no world," are the words with 
which he heads his chapter. But if sin is 
such a necessary element that consciousness 
and even existence depend upon its existence, 
to say that it is relative and not absolute is 
begging the question. It must necessarily 
be absolute, hence the overthrow of sin is 
a futile and unwise endeavor and efforts 
aimed at its eradication become engulfed in 
a flood of pessimism. For if consciousness, 



* Through Nature to God, p. 34 ft. 



TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 95 



which is necessary to the moral existence of 
the world, is made possible only through the 
fact of the presence of sin, it follows that 
every achievement along the line of good 
means a corresponding lowering of the flame 
of consciousness — a partial defeat of the 
world's stability of existence. Good must 
abound, but so also must evil in order that 
that happy equilibrium which seems to be the 
guarantee for the grandest expression of 
consciousness may be maintained! If this 
does not lead to the atrophy of the moral de- 
sires, what then? Surely this seems to follow 
more naturally from the premise than Fiske's 
conclusion.f 

Over against the foregoing theories there 
is the Christian doctrine which positively de- 
nies that sin is a part of the necessary order 
of things. Kant is fundamentally Christian 
when he recognizes a propensity to evil in 
human nature, but refers it for ethical evalu- 
ation and imputability not to natural powers, 
such as inheritance or external pressure, but 
to personal freedom of will, however at vari- 
ance his idea of freedom may be from ours. 

fAs stated under caption 10, beginning with p. 54. 



96 ADEQUATE NORM 



It was because of this attitude on the part of 
Kant that Albert Ritschl refers to him in 
glowing terms. Sin has its ground neither 
in the nature of the world nor yet in the 
nature of God. It is born out of the will of 
the individual running counter to the will of 
God. A man may gain the whole world and 
yet the profit to him may be nil if, by so 
doing, he loses his own soul. Be it a "slip," 
a "missing of the mark/' or a "rebellion," or 
a combination of them all, sin is the deliber- 
ate choice of one's own will's rulings in utter 
disregard of that which ought to be. Rob- 
inson Crusoe, on the lonely isle, was not 
under the power of any laws, social or po- 
litical; he was a law unto himself. The in- 
dividual who suffers himself to be controlled 
by the notion that he is morally isolated from 
the social order and the moral order which 
are God's, and insists on erecting a code of 
laws unto himself, is an extreme example of 
the sinner in the Christian sense. Sin of 
whatever type shows itself as Dr. Inge puts 
it, "in self-consciousness, self-will, and self- 
seeking." To strike the death-blow against 
sin, and thereby inaugurate the new social 



TASK OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 97 



order — this can only be achieved when indi- 
viduals, who are the integral and indispen- 
sable factors in the social order, are so in- 
dividually regenerated as to become micro- 
cosmic embodiments and exponents of the 
social ideal. The ethics of Jesus calls atten- 
tion to the infinite worth of the individual, 
and that, because a society into which every 
individual can and must enter is the only 
really universal society. Sin's presence in 
the soul obstructs the realization of the 
Highest Good, and so it is often described 
as the sworn enemy of the Christian ideal. 
What is this ideal? How does it present it- 
self to the ethical imagination ? This we will 
discuss in the following section; 



PART III. 

THE ETHICAL IDEAL. 



99 



CHAPTER 1. 



MET-ADELPHISM OR INFINITE BROTHERHOOD. 

When Aristotle went in quest of a concep- 
tual mould, in which to cast the "Telos," his 
thoughts lighted on politics and politics 
found concretion in the Greek state; and, 
although Plato, in his "Republic," had trans- 
cended the natural and tapped upon the ideal, 
yet, on the whole, classic ethics remained a 
branch of natural philosophy. Even Zeno's 
statement that "all men shall be regarded as 
members of one people" (if we follow Plu- 
tarch's comment on it) was fulfilled in the 
military achievements of Alexander — an ar- 
gument in favor of its lack of comprehen- 
siveness. Beautiful as his ideal was in its 
literary presentation, it merely meant a 
melting of men into a homogeneous oneness, 
not a developing of mankind into a mani- 
fold organism. Zeno's thoughts were too 
deeply steeped in that intellectualism which 
101 



102 ADEQUATE NORM 



subsequently crystallized into the atomistic 
theory of Democritus to make a grander dis- 
covery. Says W. F. Cooley, "There is a per- 
fectly plain line of division between that 
which is called one, because it is conceived 
as being an ultimate, undifferentiated case of 
simple entity — an existence with but one 
constituent — and that which is so called, be- 
cause, with all its possible complexity of 
constitution, its parts are yet duly related 
to some point of unification, physical or 
ideal."* This "line of division" slipped the 
mental vision of Zeno. The application of 
the organic idea, which means the recogni- 
tion of unity constituted out of a combined 
manifold in which each unit bears intimate 
relationship not to itself and its own preser- 
vation or to its fellows, merely, but to the 
whole, was the basic principle of the ethics 
of Jesus, and it still remains the inalienable 
inheritance of Christian ethics. Addressing 
Himself to His fellow-countrymen, our Lord 
depicted the ideal in terms of a kingdom con- 
stituted of regenerated individuals, and He 
took the greatest care to place the individual 



*The Individual, p. 15. 



MET— ADELPHISM 103 



and the social in their due relationship to 
each other, thereby giving the clue to all 
future applications of His essential doctrine. 
In adopting the kingdom idea He proved His 
claim, as did Socrates, to being a good and 
true teacher. The idea of the kingdom was 
the mould into which the Hebrew ideal was 
cast since the time of Moses, and the whole 
history of this people had been a "compro- 
mise between this vision and reality." Their 
prophets had preached it; their poets had 
sung it; their pious men had sighed for it. 
Even the captivity, dark and gloomy as it 
was, did not extinguish that persistent idea 
of the kingdom ; and the restoration, a poor, 
partial expression of it, did not cause hope 
in the realization to wane. The period which 
gave rise to the Apocryphal literature gave 
vent to the hope in this kingdom in that 
literature; and when John the Baptist 
emerged from the solitude of the Judean 
wilderness to enter upon his public career, 
the keynote of his preaching was "repent for 
the Kingdom is at hand." But the idea of 
kingdom is a mundane idea and as such is 
subject to become outworn. Expressive of 



104 ADEQUATE NORM 



a condition which attracts now but repels 
then, its value is local and its being evan- 
escent. There is, therefore, to be no sur- 
prise if a displacement of the kingdom idea 
is made in interest of some more entrancing 
or satisfying one. The disciples were aware 
of this fact, which is the only explanation of 
their almost absolute setting aside of the 
kingdom idea. "The Apostolic Age," says 
Dr. Stalker, "was too much alive to be the 
slave of phraseology, even if it were the 
phraseology of its Master. When the Apos- 
tles went forth into the heathen world, then 
practically conterminous with the Roman 
Empire, it is easy to understand that they 
could not speak much of a kingdom, because 
such language would have been interpreted 
as treason against Caesar. The kingdom 
was an essentially Jewish idea, and, when 
the Jewish state had ceased to exist, the 
phrase was dropped as a matter of course." 
And he continues, "To the common ear it has 
a forced and foreign sound. Kings and 
kingdoms do not appeal to the modern as 
they do to the ancient mind, most of the 



MET— ADELPHISM 105 



advanced modern nations being republican."* 
When Jesus used the word its connotation, 
so intended by Him, was void of political al- 
lusion. To Him the kingdom connoted a 
realm or association of concordant wills in 
which the will of God was the standard of 
evaluation as well as operation. It was this 
departure from the popular notion, and the 
refusal of the people to accept His reinterpre- 
tation of the term, insisting, as they did, to 
enmesh it in a political network, that brought 
to the climax the spirit of opposition and 
served as witness against Him in the con- 
flict that culminated in His crucifixion, But 
the Apostles had profited by the lesson, and, 
before the imposing audience of the Roman 
world their proclamation of the Gospel of 
Jesus Christ found expression in a phrase- 
ology that precluded all entanglement with 
politics beyond a peradventure. The apostle 
St. Paul arriving the closest to a systematic 
characterization of the idealized organism, 
which Christ had brought to the world, at 
times embodied it in terms of the "Ecclesia" 
— the Church— that organism, which, from 

*Ethics of Jesus, pp. 44 and 45. 



106 ADEQUATE NORM 



the nucleus of "picked" or "called" men, 
was to develop ultimately into a comprehen- 
sive unity including all humanity. At other 
times he speaks of it as a body "fitly framed 
and knit together" with all the parts in due 
proportion functioning for the preservation 
of each other and the whole, in that ordered 
"analytical unity" (to use Kant's modern 
pharse). By this he has set the example 
whereby we may utilize any figure that best 
expresses the organic ideal which is at once 
the goal and the dynamic of our ethical striv- 
ings. The permanent element of the king- 
dom idea, the figure used by Jesus Christ, to 
employ Dr. Stalker's analysis, are to be 
found (1) in the recognition of the individ- 
ual as an integral constituent of the univer- 
sal social order; (2) In the expression of 
the spirit of loyalty on the part of these in- 
dividuals to God which furnishes the "in- 
spiration for all high endeavor;" and (3) 
In the doing of the will of God which would 
be nothing short of conditions in heaven rea- 
lized upon the earth, the actualization of the 
universal social order. Whatever figure we 
may use, provided these elements are in- 



MET— ADELPHISM 107 



eluded as the fundamental thoughts therein 
contained, the content of the Christian ideal, 
the world's ultimate norm, may therein find 
expression adequate to its representative 
character as a vehicle for the current trans- 
mission of ethical thought. 

The process by which an intellectual state- 
ment of the organic ideal is arrived at is 
primarily analogical. Jesus Christ reasoned 
in this way, and so did St. Paul, when they 
aimed at a synthetic presentation of the 
ideal. When St. Augustine, by pressure of 
circumstances, was constrained to marshal 
his intellectual forces against the attacks 
of heathen philosophers, his thoughts seized, 
naturally, on the "city" concept. The indict- 
ment made was that the city of Rome, the 
one microscopic embodiment of the Empire's 
ideal, had been destroyed by the disintegrat- 
ing forces of the Christian religion. And 
St. Augustine, in making out his brief, de- 
veloped the ideal in terms of "The City of 
God." Now, what the great teachers saw 
and taught intuitively, modern minds explain 
by reason and observation. Recent investi- 
gation in biology have tended to verify the 



108 ADEQUATE NORM 



cellular theory of Schwann and Virchow and 
the cell-soul hypothesis of Hseckel. As the 
starting point of all organic structure and 
life, the cell is the physiological unit — "an 
organism of the first order" — which must be 
reckoned with in a consideration of the 
whole ; for it is the teleological combination 
of numerous units which aggregate into the 
adult individual. But it is also recognized 
that this teleological aggregation is imper- 
fect, in that every unit does not function 
with the interest of the total organism in 
view. Moreover, the various organs or in- 
struments, the larger component parts of 
the organism, are found to have value only 
in so far as they are mechanical function- 
aries working in the service of the body as a 
whole, so that some of them at times have 
to be severed from the body in order to pro- 
long that body's existence. On these grounds 
modern minds have been compelled to drop 
the apparent analogy between the biological 
organism and the ethical ideal and to revert 
once more to that conception of the social 
organism which we find unscientifically fore- 
shadowed in the New Testament and in early 



MET— ADELPHISM 109 



Christian literature. The most distinct con- 
tribution that Jesus Christ has made to eth- 
ical thought is His teaching on the infinite 
worth of the individual. With Jesus, the 
whole that claims the service of the parts is 
no abstraction, but the living organism made 
up of the sum total of living individuals. 
The individual is, therefore, both an end and 
a means. Herein do we find the great dis- 
tinction betwen Christian and scientific eth- 
ics, like Spencer's, for instance. The indi- 
vidual is infinitely more than a mere organ 
in the organism. The purpose of his being 
can not be summed up in the quantum of me- 
chanical service he renders, or may be ex- 
pected to render, to the total organism. In- 
dispensable to the nice articulation of the 
organism as a whole, the individual by filling 
his post there is at one and the same time 
realizing himself. "This truth," to quote 
J. C. Murray's words, "is of significance not 
merely in the spheres of morality and relig- 
ion. It is of the highest value also for the 
light which it throws on the problems of 
social science. For it is evident that the 
government of society, both in its theoretical 



% 



110 ADEQUATE NORM 

structure and in its practical administration, 
must never lose sight of this truth. Yet in 
social science and in social activity the truth 
is perpetually ignored. That is what gives 
momentous import to the clear, earnest, en- 
ergetic enforcement of it in the teaching of 
our Lord. While He recognizes the interde- 
pendence of men in their social relations, 
that is never allowed to conceal the in- 
dependent worth of the individual. On 
the contrary, it is this independent and infi- 
nite worth of the individual that calls for the 
infinite obligations of mutual love among 
men." Social science has helped to equip the 
modern mind with accurate analytic knowl- 
edge of the structural constitution of the so- 
cial organism, and in addition, it has made 
imperative the need of idealization. And the 
ethical imagination intent upon satisfying so 
reasonable a demand pictures to itself the 
ideal of infinite organism. 

But modern science has done it& part. 
By enlarging the cosmic horizon it has 
caused men to mould their ideas into univer- 
sal categories. Ancient ideas, circumscribed 
because they were ancient, ceased to lend 
objective satisfaction to minds thinking na- 



MET— ADELPHISM 



111 



turally in world-terms; and this fact made 
urgent demands for modern world-figures. 
Plato's Republic, the City-State of classic 
days, the limited world-view of the Hebrews, 
can no more satisfy the modern mind than 
toys can satisfy the cravings for amusement 
of the full-grown man. To meet the change, 
modern ethics calls for a reconstruction, but 
a reconstruction, not along new and untried 
lines, but along the lines mapped and followed 
out in the whole course of Christian history. 
Jesus Christ used the figure of the kingdom, 
but in so doing He lifted it into the realm of 
the transcendent — the kingdom of the world 
received its apotheosis in the kingdom of 
heaven, But as the kingdom idea, together 
with all other ancient ideas, have become 
outworn; the ethical imagination searches 
naturally for a metaphor w T hich would satis- 
fy the modern mind. That metaphor is to 
be found in the term "Brotherhood;" and 
since in these days brotherhood is synony- 
mous with "Humanity," that ethic is an 
effective one which pictures the social ideal 
in terms of the brotherhood concept. Now, 
logically considered, human brotherhood is 
charged with limitation — there is always in 



112 ADEQUATE NORM 



evidence the Cain as against the Abel, the 
Esau as against the Jacob, spirit.. This, 
however, should not stand as an argument 
against its use. Human personality is 
charged with limitation, yet those well- 
known words of John Stuart Mill, "I will 
call no being good, who is not what I mean 
when I apply that epithet to my fellow-crea- 
tures," is a reminder that we attribute per- 
sonality to God because we find its rudiments 
in man. God is what we know of person and 
infinitely more. The same is true of ideal 
brotherhood. It includes the best of all we 
find in human brotherhood and infinitely 
more. By stripping it of its empirical limi- 
tations, the ethical imagination discovers its 
holy grail in the Met-adelphic ideal. Met- 
adelphism precludes the "I am favored, you 
are not" idea; it includes the idea of har- 
monious functioning in the interest of each 
and of all. The socialist ideal knows no "I" 
and "you," it recognizes only a "we;" it 
cares not for the "each," it worships the 
"all." Socialism aims at involving all life in 
that "iron orderliness" (to use Dr. E. B. 
Andrew's expression) which refuses to coun- 



MET— ADELPHISM 113 



tenance human heterogeniety — the very 
guarantee of originality and initiative and 
genius. Met-adelphism precludes a hier- 
archy; it recognizes an equality — an equal- 
ity, not of identity but of benevolent 
duty and service and love. The scientific 
maxim spurns equality and advocates a re- 
lentless extermination of the unfit. 'The 
sooner it is perceived/' says J. C. Morrison, 
"that bad men will be bad, do what we will, 
though, of course, they may be made less bad, 
the sooner shall we come to the conclusion 
that the welfare of society demands the sup- 
pression or elimination of bad men, and the 
careful cultivation of the good only. . . . 
Nothing is gained by disguising the fact that 
there is no remedy for a bad heart, and no 
substitute for a good one."* The scientific 
ideal includes the spread of civilization and 
the prevalence of peace. To this all must 
heartily concur. But when as in the lan- 
guage and thought of the Positivist it in- 
forms us (after agreeing with us that hu- 
manity is an "organism with every quality of 
organic life") that "humanity is not com- 



♦Service *)f Man, pp. 215, 216. 



114 ADEQUATE NORM 



posed of all individuals or groups of men, 
past, present, and future, taken indiscrimi- 
nately," but that, "the new great Being is 
formed by the co-operation only of such ex- 
istence as are of a kindred nature with it- 
self; excluding such as have proved only a 
burden to the human race,"f we beg to differ, 
for the met-adelphic ideal can afford to take 
hope away from no one. Christ came to call 
sinners to repentance. Met-adelphism pre- 
cludes the spirit of selfish rivalry; it ex- 
presses the spirit of loyalty, loyalty to the 
total organism and to every member of its 
constituents. And finally, it aims after car- 
rying into effect the will of the Father. How 
ennobling is the doing of the Father's will 
may be appreciated if one studies into the 
life of Jesus Christ which is simply its im- 
mediate outcome. Of that life J. S. Mill 
gives this testimony: "Religion can not be 
said to have made a bad choice in pitching on 
this man as the ideal representative and 
guide of humanity ; nor even now would it be 
easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better 
translation of the rule of virtue from the 



f Auguste Comte's Positive Polity, vol. I, p. 333. 



MET— ADELPHISM 115 



abstract into the concrete, than to endeavor 
to so live that Christ would approve our 
life."J Over the life of Christ the Father's 
will was like an irresistible spell. 

Dr. Felix Adler, one of the world's fore- 
most ethical philosophers, presents the ideal 
in terms of infinite organism. In this re- 
spect he is at one with Christian ethics. The 
interest which this last statement creates 
leads to the desire for some comparison be- 
tween philosophic met-organism and chris- 
tian met-adelphism. Met-organism is the 
idealization of the abstract social idea "or- 
ganism;" met-adelphism is the idealization 
of the concrete social idea "brotherhood." 
The one views the ideal as a metaphysical 
abstraction; the other as it finds concretion 
in a metaphor of world-wide application. 
The latter is incarnate ; the former is not. 

Greater minds may take readily to ab- 
stract intellectual presentations of truth, ap- 
preciating their trend and issue with en- 
viable ease : but lesser minds shudder in awe 
before them and fail to appreciate their trend 
or appropriate their stimulus. Lesser minds 

$Three Essays on Theism, p. 225. 



116 ADEQUATE NORM 



discover values more readily when expressed 
in concrete examples. Nor is the value of 
concretion recognized solely by Christian 
ethics. The "Philosophic King" of Plato; 
the "Expert" of Aristotle; the "Wise Man" 
of the Stoics; the adoration of "Woman- 
hood" of Positivism are witnesses to its effi- 
ciency. "The complexity of the ethical end," 
says J. S. Mill, "is so great that it can often 
be best represented by a concrete example."* 
Tell a man that he is an indispensable mem- 
ber of an infinite spiritual organism and that 
as such he should so live as to elicit the well- 
being of every member of that organism, and 
thereby insure its own, and he is set a-think- 
ing, out of the perplexity of which condition 
he may never emerge. But substitute for 
the word "organism" the word "brother- 
hood" and his moral energies are at once 
stimulated, and he is ready for action. 
Christian ethics can not presuppose that 
ready ability for metaphysical discernment 
on the part of all, for it is too much alive 
as to the actual facts and conditions of life; 
neither can it afford to disregard the "vul- 

*Utilitarianism, p. 15. 



MET— ADELPHISM 117 



gus." Jesus Christ means that all men 
should strive to live the ideal life. "Be ye 
perfect" is a condition to which all are in- 
vited to attain. 

Whereas it would seem but a truism to as- 
sert that the met-adelphic ideal is the one 
ideal for the day, there are others, neverthe- 
less, towards which many minds find attrac- 
tion. Now, were these opponents simply 
novel bearing the attraction of novelty the 
impulse to leave them to their own fate 
would probably be a consoling one. But they 
have a history and a following which serious 
minds dare not disregard. With truth it has 
been repeatedly said that many of these de- 
partures in modern times from the Chris- 
tian sense are revivals of ancient systems. 

Pessimism, that Western revival of Orien- 
tal Buddhism, presents a philosophy of life 
based on the creed that all things are for 
the worse — that happiness is an illusion and 
an unhopeful endeavor. Practically the ob- 
verse of this is that theory known in mod- 
ern times as Utilitarianism. Pessimism is 
represented in poetic garb by the writings 
of the Italian poet Leopardi; in social and 



118 ADEQUATE NORM 



literary attire by the lower strata of Rus- 
sian society interpreted by Tolstoy; and in 
philosophic form by the works of Schop- 
enhauer and his disciple Von Hartmann. 
This philosophy of nihilism, apart from its 
ethic, is a phenomenon curious enough to en- 
gage the attention of the pathologist. It 
may be comparatively easy to explain Leo- 
pardi's world-view taking his life as a com- 
mentary. A hopeless invalid might well 
during the overshadowing of a dark cloud in 
his life's experiences exclaim that "the most 
happy lot is not to live." A continuous suf- 
ferer might well be expected to sum up life 
in the term "infelicita" and lament the infi- 
nite vanity of all things. But the problem 
looms large when a man like Von Hartmann 
with a happy family and genial social acces- 
sories propounds so gloomy and uninviting 
a picture of the ideal of life. But waiving 
the psychological issue as an investigation 
that would lead us too far afield, we restrict 
ourselves to its ethics. The ideal of pess- 
imism is the total denial of the efficacy of 
Being. Nihilism is the demand of human 
nature, the idol before whose shrine we must, 



MET— ADELPHISM 119 



if indeed we are rightly instructed, fall down 
and worship! The Will which Schopen- 
hauer declares to be the source of Being and 
the condition of its continuation is the most 
pernicious power in all the world ! It mani- 
fests itself in the "will to live," compelling 
men to act as fools in the effort to work 
against their noblest end! By endeavoring 
to repel disease by providing for the phys- 
ical necessities of life; and worst of all, by 
insuring the continuation of the species 
through propagation in the "tragedy of sex- 
ual love" the will works its havoc on human- 
ity! The worthiest effort that man can put 
forth, therefore, is the persistent denial of 
this "will to live;" or, as Von Hartmann 
would express it: the total condemnation of 
consciousness and the affirmation of the "un- 
conscious" — the annihilation of Being; Nir- 
vana! 

But how is the ideal which this startling 
philosophy presents to be realized? Tolstoy, 
a tireless writer, deplores the art of print- 
ing for he says it facilitates the production 
and circulation of his books. But since the 



120 ADEQUATE NORM 



art of printing is here, and here to stay, he 
wishes that his books may be destroyed so 
as not to be read. Schopenhauer, a selfish 
recluse, husbanding his resources which he 
had inherited in miserly fashion, and living 
to old age fearing nothing more than sick- 
ness and death, teaches that the duty of each 
man on his part is to so act as to negative in 
his life at least the "will to live." While 
Von Hartmann for the time being assumes a 
more hopeful attitude by conceding that now 
is the time for us to affirm the "will to live," 
and during the time thus occupied efforts 
should be strenuously and persistently made 
to instruct the world as to cause and cure, 
so that in due process of time a general de- 
termination by the whole race may be ar- 
rived at to unite forces in one mighty and 
successful effort for the extinction of life and 
consciousness and the relapse into universal 
oblivion and ennui. And why not? For this 
world, if not the worst possible, is so bad 
that no world at all is infinitely more desir- 
able! Kant once admonished men that they 
should so act that the maxim of their con- 
duct might serve, at the same time, as a 



MET— ADELPHISM 121 



principle of universal legislation. If the ex- 
ponents of pessimism have ever preached 
that doctrine it is certain that they have not 
moved a finger in the effort to practice it. 
Christianity does not deny the dark shades 
of life's picture. The tragedies of the world 
are too stubborn to be overlooked. Pain, 
disease, privation, bereavement, disappoint- 
ment, sin, are fact not fiction. But while 
pessimism loses hope and thinks to find con- 
solation in despair, Christianity counts on 
the ultimate overthrow of evil of whatever 
sort and the triumph of a regenerated social 
order in which shall reign joy and happiness 
and bliss; and it girds up its loins and en- 
gages in the task of reconstruction. 

While the pessimist holds out that gloomy 
picture there is another class of thinkers 
which swings to the other extreme and pre- 
sents the ideal entirely in terms of happi- 
ness. As an historical system this "pleas- 
ure" ideal dates earlier than the days of Epi- 
curus. Democritus had taught that happi- 
ness is the highest good but with him the 
emphasis was on its qualitative side. Its 
seat being in the soul, external delights and 



122 ADEQUATE NORM 



goods do not secure it. Bentham, a modern 
exponent, however, clings to its quantitative 
aspect. He prefers the term "Hedonism" 
because he considers that "Eudaemonism" is 
too refined. And this tendency to oscillation 
may be noted throughout the literature of 
the philosophy of happiness. Credit is due 
to J. S. Mill, who critically compares the 
two and throws the weight of his decision 
in favor of the former. He writes : "Util- 
ity or the greatest happiness principle, holds 
that actions are right in proportion as they 
tend to promote happiness; wrong as they 
tend to produce the reverse of happiness." 
But pleasures of the intellect and of the 
moral sentiments are nobler by reason of 
their intrinsic character than pleasures of 
the senses. "It is better to be Socartes dis- 
satisfied, than a fool satisfied." The new 
name by which he calls it, Utilitarianism, 
conceives of happiness as the goal and prog- 
ress as the means to its realization. 

It is easy, as against pessimism, to under- 
stand why it is that this philosophy of con- 
duct is such a spell-binder. Judging it by its 
strongest, and not by its weakest, features, 



MET— ADELPHISM 123 



it is seen that it gives answer to a funda- 
mental desire of the mind. As happiness is 
so entrancing and desirable an asset of hu- 
man experience the age is ready to exercise 
itself in quest of it as the goal of life. It 
inculcates a humanitarian attitude through 
the endeavor to have it diffused. It there- 
fore fosters philanthropy and sympathy and 
battles for social betterment. But may we 
not ask the question: is happiness the su- 
preme inducement to moral living ? Is it not 
an accompaniment rather than the essence 
of morality? There are not a few who count 
it their duty to sacrifice that which is ob- 
viously pleasurable for the comfort of their 
fellows. A person relinquishes not merely 
sensuous delights but intellectual ambitions 
to do service for an unfortunate relative or 
a needy family. This is a matter of common 
occurrence; and specific instances would be 
superfluous. Here duty cuts right squarely 
across the aspiration for happiness. And 
the explanation that it is justifiable because 
it gives up a narrow type for a more altruis- 
tic is not satisfying. If one, by obeying the 



124 ADEQUATE NORM 



voice of duty, imparts happiness to his fel- 
low or fellows by denying it to himself or by 
falling back on a sorry substitute, he can 
not be said to be doing battle for that uni- 
versal aspiration. And, if in any instance 
the "happiness" ideal fails to do justice in- 
clusively it is a dangerous undertaking to ap- 
ply it to the universal order. Happiness is 
an element, and a vital one, of the ultimate 
social ideal. For it is a part of human na- 
ture to desire it; and it shines forth in 
every victory, however partial that victory 
may be, for duty and for right. The met- 
adelphic ideal, therefore, presupposes and 
guarantees it ; but it can not be the total ex- 
pression of that ideal. "Jesus," says Dr. 
Stalker, ever true to nature, acknowledged 
this (i. e., the desire for happiness) as one 
of the primordial forces of our being, and 
endeavored to enlist it among the motives of 
goodness. Only He employed the word 
'blessed' in the place of 'happy' — a simple yet 
a radical change ; for blessedness is a happi- 
ness pure and spiritual, reaching down to 
the profoundest elements of human nature 



MET— ADELPHISM 125 

and reaching forth to the ultimate develop- 
ments of eternity/'* 

♦Ethics of Jesus, p. 38. 



CHAPTER 2. 



ITS ADEQUACY. 

The adequacy of an ideal is its applicabil- 
ity — its inherent power to translate adora- 
tion into imitation. It must not simply be 
an attractive picture but an attractive living 
picture with the capacity to shape and color 
its admirer after its own pattern and design. 
The adequacy of an ethical ideal is to be 
found in the volume of its transformative 
and regenerative force — its life-enhancing, 
character-building power. According to this 
test the Christian ideal is the only adequate 
ideal. The Christian ideal is well-rounded 
personal and social life containing all the 
magnetism of that life. And herein do we 
find its ultimate vindication. Under this 
caption we will discuss the moral dynamics 
of the met-adelphic ideal. 

A. (1). The beauty and harmony of 
the ideal inspire action. 

126 



ITS ADEQUACY 127 



The harmonious mingling of countless dis- 
sonant tones into one grand symphony is 
the picture herein presented. You, the 
other, and I are the dissonant tones. But 
in the orchestra we are not suppressed; we 
are adjusted — we are harmonized. When it 
is clearly seen that the grand effect of life's 
music depends upon the perfect quality of 
each and every tone we are spurred on to so 
live as to produce in our life and in every 
event of it that tone we ought to produce. 
No one imbued with moral sense would feel 
justified in considering himself a discordant 
tone, a vitiator of life's well-ordered sym- 
phoneous effect. Individuality kept intact in 
the make-up of the larger synthesis, the con- 
scious recognition of which is the earnest of 
initiative and genius, creates at the every 
outset that interest which is essential to eth- 
ical action. And the total effect which 
prophesies that symmetry and beauty that 
appeal readily to the rational imagination 
imparts the energy which contributes to- 
wards making us bend every effort in one 
continuous march towards the "beatific vi- 
sion" until that vision is realized. The met- 



128 ADEQUATE NORM 



adelphic ideal inspires in both these direc- 
tions at one and the same time. It con- 
vinces me that I must regard you as well as 
myself as morally indispensable entities in 
the sum of Being. Each is a distinct yet 
related element without which the whole can 
not possibly begin to be. Even the degen- 
erate or the backward must be included be- 
cause of the very fact that he is an integral 
factor in the great whole. He is human. 
Just imagine the wonderful missionary en- 
thusiasm, personal, domestic and foreign, 
that such a thought inspires! Because he is 
human, the basest degenerate possesses 
worth, however beclouded it may be. And 
it naturally becomes the duty of all others 
to elicit by their influence the atom of worth 
that there is in him and thereby evolve in 
him the full expression of the spirit. We 
are all our brother's keepers. One is judged, 
therefore, not according to one's actual, but 
according to one's potential, self — according 
to one's inherent possibilities. The individ- 
ual is at one and the same time an end and 
a means ; an end in that he is endowed with 
inalienable worth, a means in that he is es- 



ITS ADEQUACY 129 



sential to the harmonious completion of 
the ideal of universal brotherhood. Again, 
met-adelphism lays stress on personal rela- 
tions which instil zest into life. It is a 
brother working and living alongside of a 
brother both with the intent on incarnating 
the spirit of ideal brotherhood to the infinite 
weal of both alike. It is not two strangers 
contractually related which temporarily 
throws them together. Met-adelphism is a 
social ideal, a social ideal based not merely 
upon acquired friendship but upon innate 
kinship, filial regard, spiritual interdepend- 
ence. Not physical indispensability but or- 
ganic constitutionality furnishes the spir- 
itual dynamic of conduct. 

2. The Quality of Personal Character it 
Produces. 

(a) Reverence: A morally healthy per- 
son sees and denounces his shortcomings. 
He also admires as worthy of emulation the 
moral carriage of another whom he regards 
— and rightly so—as his spiritual superior. 
Such reverence is as natural as it is healthy. 



130 ADEQUATE NORM 



Call it disparagingly hero-worship if you 
will; yet, nevertheless, its roots are deeply 
imbedded in the character that aspires to no- 
bility of living. And the model, if indeed he 
be worthy the epithet, endeavors on his part 
to so direct the admirer that he becomes not 
his second but his superior, if possible. "Be 
ye imitators of me as I am of Christ," says 
St. Paul. This is all easy to understand. But 
the ideal also inspires reverence on the part 
of the superior for his inferior. Zacharias 
the father reverences John the son.* Now, 
this reverence we here speak of is not simply 
reverence of protection and care but rever- 
ence for that which in others we find less 
developed in ourselves ; reverence in view of 
new and immeasurable possibilities of spir- 
itual being. Neither does this exhaust itself 
with natural kinship. The more clearly the 
Christian becomes conscious of the ideal ; the 
more resolutely he determines to tune his 
life in accord with its music, the readier is 
he able to comprehend the great Christian 
truth that "God has made out of one blood 
all nations of men for to dwell on the face of 



*Luke I, 76ff. 



ITS ADEQUACY 131 



the whole earth." He comes into contact 
with the one standing on a lower level of 
civilization or morality; but his eagle eyes 
pierce below the uninviting surface to the 
core, the seat of the personality, and there he 
discovers a spark — smoldering it may be, 
yet alive — of the life divine. He looks at the 
empirical man; but he does not assign him 
the position of a menial, the position of a 
hand or a foot, as in the biological organism, 
for he discovers that he is an end in himself 
with all the privileges and prerogatives and 
responsibilities of an end. Back of the em- 
pirical man, broken and defaced or crude and 
unpolished, he sees the noumenal man, with 
all the possibilities of efficient membership, 
on par with himself, in the spiritual brother- 
hood of the human race. Is not this a spur 
to humane living? 

(b) The ideal inspires reverence; it also 
produces simplicity of life. By this it is 
not meant that it promises a bare life. The 
ascetic lives a bare life but his is not neces- 
sarily and on that account a simple life. A 
simple life, like a great work of art or 
music, is one which makes a distinct, clear, 



132 ADEQUATE NORM 



positive, grand, impression. Nor is a simple 
life synonymous with a plain life. A plain 
life is not necessarily a simple life, though a 
simple life is on that account a plain one. 
The day-drudger may live a plain life but 
that is no guarantee that his is a simple life. 
By a simple life is meant a life that is capa- 
ble of distinguishing between fundamentals 
and incidentals and of classifying them ac- 
cording to their relative values, and of ad- 
justing itself to that classification. Loaves 
and fishes as well as the hearing of the Word 
are necessary and desirable but the one who 
leads the simple life would follow the Master 
not primarily for the loaves and fishes but 
for the word of life. The simple life is the 
well-proportioned life. Recognizing com- 
plexities, it does not (like Tolstoy) strive to 
draw away from them and to make its social 
retreat, but it works through them to calmer 
heights. By placing just estimate on the 
things which count it causes the subsidiary 
ones to take their rightful places in the con- 
stitution of the well-rounded personality. It 
keeps the sub-, and the super-, ordinate 
things of life in their relative places. 



ITS ADEQUACY 133 



Aiming at the essential life in self, the 
simple life also strives to adjust itself to the 
other from the point of view of the essential 
in that other. The one who lives the simple 
life does not see in the other the side that 
other presents and nothing* more. Whether 
that side presented be the complexion of his 
skin, his pursuits in life, the range of his 
mentality or the type of his character, the 
one who lives the simple life knows that 
these are but fragments of the full life of 
that other. He endeavors, therefore, to re- 
late himself to that other from the viewpoint 
of his intrinsic worth. 

(c) To reverence and simplicity add 
strength. It is not only to the Anglo-Saxon 
that the quality of vigor or strength appeals. 
No race or no individual if called on to 
choose between personal weakness and per- 
sonal vigor, provided that race or that indi- 
vidual is normal, would prefer the former. 
Our ideal builds up the personality with that 
manly quality of strength. Saul of Tarsus 
detested nascent Christianity for it seemed 
to him to be a religion of weakness. St. Paul 
the missionary gloried in the vitality and 



134 ADEQUATE NORM 



vitality-producing religion of the Resurrec- 
tion. This is his verdict : "Wretched man that 
I am ! who shall deliver me from this body of 
death? I thank God through Jesus Christ 
our Lord." And when he exhorted his people 
with the words, "quit you like men," "be 
strong in the Lord and in the power of His 
might," he spoke from personal experience. 
He had made the venture of faith in the re- 
ligion of Jesus Christ, and he had found in 
it the adequate norm of life. "I am not 
ashamed of the Gospel," says he, "for it is 
the power of God unto salvation to everyone 
that believeth." Strength is the root; it is 
also the fruit of the ideal. Effectiveness, 
force of character, constructive energy, pro- 
ductivity, are the direct issues of the life of 
the ideal. We search in vain among other 
systems, ancient or modern, for that grand 
array of productive personalities the repre- 
sentatives of the fruit of the Christian ideal. 
With this ideal everything rests upon the 
strength of unconstrained obligation. Right 
living is a thing which simply has to be 
without condition or argument. Truth con- 
vinces, and conviction is an aspect of moral 



ITS ADEQUACY 135 



strength. When the rational mind discovers 
its satisfaction in the pursuit and practise 
of truth which the met-adelphic ideal pre- 
sents it is morally self -bound to pursue that 
truth with unremitting earnestness. 

B. (1) Christian ethics idealizes the 
concrete social idea of brotherhood; it also 
idealizes personal life. It presents to the 
world in one bold and masterful sketch a 
single historic life-picture of the perfected 
met-adelphic ideal. Jesus Christ is not only 
the dispenser of that spiritual vitality which 
generates the perfect life, He is Himself the 
supreme personal pattern of that life; nay 
more, He is the perfect life. Life is influenc- 
ing, magnetic, generative. The ideal brought 
to a focus in the life of Christ is the ultimate 
generative power in the world. Jesus Christ 
came to teach life and to live life, but His 
mission was also to give life. "I am come," 
says He, "that they might have life, and that 
they might have it more abundantly." Now, 
the life power He imparts is His own, so that 
the receiver in proportion to his receipt of 
that life must also be a liver of it. Let the 
world endeavor to transform into action in 



136 



ADEQUATE NORM 



its every department the power it receives or 
may receive from the life of Christ and ideal 
brotherhood is approximated in a ratio pro- 
portionate to the success of the effort. The 
life of Christ is the spirit of ideal brother- 
hood ; the teachings of Christ are the princi- 
ples of this spirit to be applied to the actual 
conditions of life. Lives of Christ have ap- 
peared and still continue to appear and yet 
the sum total of that life in all its grandeur 
and freshness has not been fully told. New 
aspects appear with every new condition of 
mundane experience. "It would be possible 
to take a single quality of outstanding prom- 
inence in His character, such as love, and 
group around it all the rest or develop them 
out of it ; or one of His haunting ideas, such 
as the will of God, might be taken as the key, 
In spite of the narrow limits of the gospels, 
so much is crowded into their narratives that 
it is possible to follow Jesus through nearly 
every department of human existence and 
observe His demeanor and bearing in char- 
acteristic experiences, and in this way there 
may be constructed an image of Christ in 
the home, in the State, in the Church, in 



ITS ADEQUACY 137 



friendship, in society, as a man of prayer, as 
a student of Scripture, as a worker, as a 
sufferer, as a philanthropist, as a winner of 
souls, as a preacher, as a teacher, as a con- 
troversialist, as a man of feeling, as an in- 
fluence/'* Men and nations can profit much 
by obedience to the Master when He bids us 
to follow Him. Nor has twenty centuries 
dimmed the picture or exhausted the regen- 
erative influence of Christ's life. "The man- 
hood of Jesus still exists and is, in essence, 
not different from w T hat it was when it per- 
vaded the fields of Galilee and moved in the 
streets of Jerusalem ; and the spiritual pres- 
ence, which is with us always and every- 
where, according to His promise, is identical 
both with the glorified manhood now at God's 
right hand and with the bygone earthly life, 
the incidents of which have been preserved 
to us in the gospels, so that a communion 
with Christ, wonderfully real and wonder- 
fully similar to that enjoyed by the Twelve, 
is still accessible to those who covet it. There 
are men and women now breathing above 
ground who are more intimately acquainted 

*Dr. Stalker, "Ethics of Jesus," p. 206. 



138 ADEQUATE NORM 



with Jesus Christ than with any other 
friend, and these cannot but exhibit the in- 
fluence of His character upon their own"* 
That all men may be so intimately acquainted 
with Jesus Christ as to exhibit the influence 
of His character in their lives and in every 
ramification of their lives— this is the vision 
of the met-adelphic ideal. 

(2) History furnishes a most convincing 
argument in favor of the adequacy of the 
Christian ideal. When Celsus made out his 
indictment against the Christian religion his 
data were fragmentary and his charges 
false. J. C. Morison has committed a sim- 
ilar error in the opposite direction. He says 
that "Christianity has a very limited in- 
fluence on the world at large; but a most 
powerful effect on certain high-toned na- 
tures, who, by becoming true saints, produce 
an immense impression on public opinion, 
and give that religion much of the honor 
which it enjoys. "t What the world has ac- 
complished under the influence of Christian- 
ity is writ large upon the pages of history, 

♦Ibid., p. 214. 

iServiee of Man, p, 177. 



ITS ADEQUACY 139 



and there preserved for anyone to read who 
may. That spirit of Christ which He prom- 
ised to send into the world to standardize 
the intercourse between profession and pro- 
fession, vocation and vocation, man and 
man; that spirit which reaches out and em- 
braces citizen and nation and humanity into 
one enormous family all striving for the 
total weal of each and each for all, is too 
living a reality to escape the attention. 
When the Thegns of Northumbria under 
Eadwine heard from the lips of Paulinus the 
explanation of life in this world and the as- 
surance of the life to come they voiced the 
sentiments of Coifi: "Now I understand 
what the truth is. I see it shining clearly in 
this teaching"; and they embraced Chris- 
tianity. When Constantine discovered that 
the moral worth of Christianity impartefl 
that stability which insured conquest he 
lifted that religion to stately eminence. 
When Japan and China realized that the 
stimulus to broader civilization and national 
progress are intimately interwoven in the 
religion of the Nazarene they threw wide 
open their gates and welcomed the faith. 



140 



ADEQUATE NORM 



its works has it been known; by its fruits 
has its worth been tested. If one should 
take a retrospective glance over the two 
thousand years of the existence of the Chris- 
tian religion one could not avoid making the 
discovery that from the time when John the 
Baptist attracted multitudes to the desert 
to listen to his preaching the great aim of 
Christianity has been to equalize social in- 
equalities and to inaugurate a reign of 
brotherhood on the grandest ethical basis. 
That men should live rightly with their fel- 
lows and constitute a truly ideal society it 
elevated the virtue of love to the throne of 
pre-eminence. "Human life originates in 
love. It is love that holds together the basal 
human organization, the family. The phys- 
ical expression of all love and friendship is 
the desire to get together and be together. 
Love creates fellowship. In the measure in 
which love increases in any social organism, 
it will hold together without coercion, If 
physical coercion is constantly necessary, it 
is proof that the social organism has not 
evoked the power of human affection and 



ITS ADEQUACY 141 



fraternity."* Jesus Christ wanted men to 
live as neighbors and He has set the example 
which the Church is ever striving to emulate. 
As early as the dawn of Pentecost we find 
the Apostles in their small way striving to 
effect a moral reconstruction of the then ex- 
isting society. Tertullian in his Apologyf 
discussing the matter of charitable contribu- 
tions writes : "These monies are, as it were, 
the deposits of piety. They are expended 
upon no banquets or drinking-bouts or 
thankless eating-houses, but on feeding and 
burying poor people, on behalf of boys and 
girls who have neither parents nor money, in 
support of old folks unable now to go about, 
as well as for people who are ship-wrecked, 
or who may be in the mines or exiled in 
islands or in prison." Justinian in the sixth 
century officially delegated the administra- 
tion of public charities in the East to the 
Bishops of the Church. Throughout the 
Middle Ages the Church was the self- 
appointed custodian of learning and culture ; 
the sole dispenser of moral and spiritual life ; 

*Rauschenbusch, "Christianity and the Social 
Crisis," pp. 67 and 68. 
1160-220, Circ. 



142 ADEQUATE NORM 



the supreme inspirer and director of the as- 
pirations of the people. Animated by this 
spirit of brotherliness, and propelled by the 
energy of love she has been the first mover 
in every effort to ameliorate the strenuous 
conditions of life. She has evolved the ideal 
and also directs the way towards the actual- 
ization of the same. 

In 1913 the following report was presented 
by the Commission on the Church and 
Social Service to the Federal Council of 
Churches in session assembled at Chicago, 
and adopted: It reads: 

The Church Must Stand. 

1. For equal rights and complete justice 
for all men in all stations of life. 

2. For the protection of the family, by 
the single standard of purity, uniform 
divorce laws, proper regulation of marriage, 
and proper housing. 

3. For the fullest possible development 
of every child, especially by the provision of 
proper education and recreation. 

4. For the abolition of child labor. 



ITS ADEQUACY 143 



5. For such regulation of the conditions 
of toil for women as shall safeguard the 
physical and moral health of the community. 

6. For the abatement and prevention of 
poverty. 

7. For the protection of the individual 
and society from the social, economic, and 
moral waste of the liquor traffic. 

8. For the conservation of health. 

9. For the protection of the worker from 
dangerous machinery, occupational diseases, 
and mortality. 

10. For the right of all men to the oppor- 
tunity for self-maintenance, for safeguard- 
ing the right against encroachments of every 
kind and for the protection of workers from 
the hardships of enforced unemployment. 

11. For suitable provision for the old age 
of the workers, and for those incapacitated 
by injury. 

12. For the right of employees and em- 
ployers alike to organize, and for adequate 
means of conciliation and arbitration in in- 
dustrial disputes. 

13. For the release from employment one 
day in seven. 



144 ADEQUATE NORM 



14. For the gradual and reasonable re- 
duction of the hours of labor to the lowest 
practicable point, and for that degree of 
leisure for all which is a condition of the 
highest human life. 

15. For a living wage as a minimum in 
every industry, and for the highest wage that 
each industry can afford. 

16. For a new emphasis on the applica- 
tion of Christian principles to the acquisition 
and use of property, and for the most equi- 
table division of the product of industry that 
can ultimately be devised. 

Such is the express purpose of an influen- 
tial organization of Federated Churches. 
And there are other instances without num- 
ber that may be cited which go to show that 
Christianity is alive and busy at its task to 
lead the way in bringing about "that one far- 
off divine event towards which the whole cre- 
ation moves." 

But the Church so clearly conscious of its 
mission within its own borders is also wide 
'awake as to its duty to the world at large. 
Medical and surgical aid follows in the wake 



ITS ADEQUACY 145 



of its preaching of ideal brotherhood to the 
nations of the Orient and of Africa and the 
peoples inhabiting the isles of the sea; and 
schools which really teach spring naturally 
into being wherever the feet of Christian 
missionaries have trod. That adverse criti- 
cism, namely : that the Bible is the precursor 
of commercial greed, has become obsolete ; 
and Missions have become a world-approved 
movement. Doubt as to the integrity and 
moral veracity of the motive back of the 
world-wide evangelistic propaganda can no- 
where be entertained today. To develop or- 
der out of chaos; to engender love in place 
of hate; to cultivate a healthy altruism as 
against selfishness; to enthrone fraternity 
and dethrone animosity — these are the mo- 
tive power propelling missionary enterprises. 
Says Dr. Harnack : "The entire labor of the 
Christian mission might be described as a 
moral enterprise, as the awakening and 
strengthening of the moral sense. Such a 
description would not be inadequate to its 
full contents."* 



*Miss. & Exp., vol. I, p. 206. 



146 ADEQUATE NORM 



"The ideal of a fraternal organization of 
society," to quote again from Dr. Rauschen- 
busch, "is so splendid that it is today enlist- 
ing the choicest young minds of the intel- 
lectual classes under its banner. Idealists 
everywhere are surrendering to it, especially 
those who are under the power of the ethical 
spirit of Christianity."* 

But it does not suffice to outline the con- 
tents of the ideal and deliniate its adequacy 
as the efficient dynamic in the regenerative 
process. Modern efficiency in theoretical pre- 
sentation carries with it the demand for 
modern efficiency in a program of action. It 
was because he felt this demand so keenly 
that Dr. Patten exclaimed, "Christianity 
needs, not preachers, but workers!" A 
sense of conditions as they are, an ideal of 
things as they should be, must just as in- 
evitably be followed by some definite pro- 
gram of action which, when carried out, will 
help to convert the ideal into the real as day 
follows the night. The mariner knows where 

*Christianity and the Social Crisis, p. 400. 



ITS ADEQUACY 147 



he is and whither he is bound; but he yet 
needs a compass to direct his course thither- 
wards. 



CHAPTER 3 



A SUGGESTED PROGRAM OF MORAL REFORM 

As the individual is both a means and an 
end so his contribution to the sum of living 
is a means and also an end. The primary 
aim of each is to effect that transformation 
in the personality that makes for the new 
type of manhood so graphically portrayed in 
the life of Christ. In this endeavor one finds 
oneself inevitably and perpetually coming 
into vital relationships with others; and, in 
the effort to perfect the self, finds oneself 
working with the co-ordinate desire to per- 
fect the other at one and the same time. Thus 
the regenerative process transcends personal 
interests and finds its legitimate locus in the 
interest alike of the group. Now individual 
initiative, though it broadens out into cor- 
porate effort, is likely to be unsystematic. 
The program which follows is an attempt to 
conserve energy and avoid waste. Without 
148 



A SUGGESTED PROGRAM 149 



disregarding individual efforts it purposes 
to marshal social forces so as to construct a 
systematic machinery that will operate for 
the regeneration of humanity. 

As social science suggests the organic idea 
which has proven so effective for ethical 
theory, so political science (or better) prac- 
tical politics furnishes the clue for a pro- 
gram the working out of which would carry 
forward the actual in the direction of the 
ideal. The National Government takes and 
preserves a census of its population; and 
political parties keep a list of their voting 
strength in the several states. If the Church 
has the interest of the whole population and 
not merely that of its actual members at 
heart, why should it not keep a list of the 
total number of members, actual and poten- 
tial, that must in the last analysis be included 
in the complete body of Christ, the adelphic 
organism? In well regulated political units 
the leader or chairman can easily tell the 
total number of voters in his constituency. 
When election time draws near the several 
subordinate officers among whom the names 
of voters in that unit are systematically dis- 



150 ADEQUATE NORM 



tributed are sent out to "look up" each voter 
to find out his leaning with regards to the 
candidates on the ticket and to do "mission- 
ary work" wherever signs of weakness or 
defection are in evidence. In this way the 
chairman can make an approximately ac- 
curate estimate or forecast of the returns 
from his unit before the day of election. This 
is business. And the more systematic it is 
done the more gratifying are the results. The 
Church of Christ may do well to go about its 
work in some such business-like fashion. 
Suppose we follow political divisions — not 
as an absolute necessity but for practical 
purposes — and allow for deviation from 
same wherever such would be advantageous. 
Let the ministers of each congressional dis- 
trict of every state get together and form a 
board of religious "leaders" for that district. 
This having been done, a careful division of 
the total number of names may be made ac- 
cording to the smallest political units; ex. 
wards or precincts, and an assignment of 
each unit be made over to the care of one or 
more layman according to the numerical 
status of that unit. There are always in 



A SUGGESTED PROGRAM 151 



every community some men and women with 
a natural bent for philanthropic and social 
work. To these, as volunteer agents, such 
care may be given. Due discretion should 
of course be exercised in the choice of lay 
agents. Not churchmanship or denomina- 
tional affiliation, but zeal and readiness to de- 
vote spare time to the service of mankind 
should determine their choice. With this 
every-member canvass, this systematic di- 
vision, this assignment of lay agents, all com- 
pleted, the body may then proceed to appoint 
commissions to each of which work of a spe- 
cial character will be assigned. For ex- 
ample, there may be a commission on em- 
ployment, one on physical welfare, one on 
domestic relations, one on education, one on 
religious relations, one on publication, etc., 
etc., etc. 

As each congressional district keeps in 
touch with every other thereby making pos- 
sible state-wide machineries and nation-wide 
organizations, so the same may be done in 
this field, with the further specification, 
namely, that in addition to the national or- 
ganization as a whole each commission will 



152 ADEQUATE NORM 



keep in touch with every other of its kind 
throughout the state and nation. If such a 
system were to be adopted it would not be 
long before cognizance would be given it not 
only by the National Government with which 
it is a natural co-worker for the National 
good but also by every other association or- 
ganized for the betterment of humanity 
everywhere. And the funds and the influ- 
ence necessary for its efficient operation 
would be forthcoming adequate to the degree 
of its usefulness. There would be the blend- 
ing of the moral and political aspirations of 
the people which must spell progress for 
both. 

It shall be the duty of each agent to make 
periodic visitations, and when emergencies 
call for more, on each person assigned to his 
or her supervision ; and as nearly as possible 
to enter sympathetically into the life condi- 
tions of each. The agent will also, in the 
most informal manner, converse with his or 
her constituents on topics affecting the essen- 
tials of life, and in this way help to bring to 
the foreground ideas and ideals of duty and 
responsibility in every field of human en- 



A SUGGESTED PROGRAM 153 



deavor. The agents shall also report at stated 
intervals, or whenever emergency demands 
it, to the several commissions on their work 
and on the problems they find that call for 
solution. And the commission that has to do 
with the given problem will take the matter 
up and strive to get at the cause and apply 
the best remedy. Room will readily be found 
in such a scheme for gatherings which would 
engage in the discussion and elucidation of 
knotty problems of more than passing inter- 
est. In this way and in others of kindred 
nature the public mind and conscience will 
be educated along the lines of the essentials 
of social living. 

The Commission on Employment will 
keep in touch with every institution, public 
and private, engaged in employing help, rt 
will recommend fit employes and strive to 
insure adequate protection for employer and 
employe. All such matters as child-labor, the 
regulation of hours and conditions of female 
and male labor, the matter of enforced unem- 
ployment and scanty wages, the matter of 
labor organizations, etc., etc., will come 
within the scope of its concern. 



154 ADEQUATE NORM 



The Commission on Physical Welfare will 
investigate into the sanitary conditions of 
the community, into housing conditions, into 
playground accommodations, into conditions 
having to do with public recreation and 
amusement, into the food-products of fac- 
tories, pure milk for babies and matters of 
kindred nature. 

The Commission on Domestic Relations 
will have as its aim the training of individ- 
uals as well as the public to respect personal 
and social purity, to recognize the sanctity 
of family and all other established social re- 
lationships, to care for orphans, the disabled 
and the aged. 

The Commission on Religious Relations 
will strive to teach the people that the re- 
ligious instincts are elemental in nature; 
that religion gives value to life ; that person- 
ally it calls for individual regeneration while 
socially it demands human reorganization on 
a spiritual basis; that it finds outlet in the 
communion of souls as well as in contem- 
plation of Deity; that attendance upon 
Church services and affiliation with some re- 
ligious body for the development of a full 



A SUGGESTED PROGRAM 155 



religious life is as desirable and dutiful as 
affiliation with some political party or at- 
tachment to some political faith is desirable 
and dutiful for a rounded civic life. Credal 
differences will pale into insignificance be- 
fore the grand array of forces united for 
race-betterment and race-regeneration. 

The Commission on Education will assume 
oversight over children of school age as well 
as looking into conditions of schoolhousing. 
It will also set the standard for the quality 
and character of the teaching matter and 
help to influence the state in devising means 
to the highest efficiency pedagogically. The 
Sunday School will also come under its gen- 
eral supervision as well as such agencies 
which aim at enlarging the scope of intel- 
lectual acquisition. Its aim will also be to 
make instruction workable so as to develop 
the whole man, muscles, brains and morals. 

The publishable materials of all the Com- 
missions will be placed under the care of the 
Bureau of Publication, the purpose of which 
shall be to print and circulate literature 
tending to stimulate initiative and educate 
the mind and conscience in methods and 



156 ADEQUATE NORM 



means for the translation of the actual con- 
ditions of life into ideal conditions. - 

As here stated in the most general terms 
by way of suggestion and not regulation, 
such may be the basis of personal and cor- 
porate reconstruction. It is evident that such 
a scheme as this will cause an overlapping 
of spheres religious and civic ; but wherever 
such be the case the duty of the Church shall 
be not to dictate or control but to enlighten 
and suggest. All advance in legislation must 
follow in the wake of enlightened morality 
and public opinion. Real advance — real be- 
cause operative — -must come as a result of 
enlightened public conscience. If each is 
carried out in details which it is not possible 
or desirable to here lay down, in conformity 
to the special and peculiar conditions of 
each community, and then given nation- 
wide and world-wide application, it would 
not be long before the economic, social and 
religious problems, dominant issues of the 
day would yield to systematic control. Men 
would soon come to realize that they are not 
isolated units for whose well-being no one 
cares but themselves or their kith and kin, 



A SUGGESTED PROGRAM 157 



but that they are entities known everywhere 
and respected everywhere in a degree con- 
formable to the respect they pay to the cor- 
porate forces that weave the social fabric. 
When they discover that in them the social 
organism has a distinct and a conscious in- 
terest and that this interest is an enduring 
one and one that follows them into each and 
every activity of life they will be ready to 
board the "band wagon" and lend a hand in 
the struggle towards the ideal. "A truly 
social morality,'' says Dr. Patten, "will be 
more authoritative than any traditional code 
could be. At the same time, its basis will be 
so clear and attractive that no resistance to 
its dictation can arise. What men must do, 
and what they desire to do, will be so blended 
that no one will know which force determines 
his acts."* But in addition to that the moral 
forces of the Church can do more. "The re- 
ligious sentiment can protect good customs 
and institutions against the inroads of ruth- 
less greed, and extend their scope. It can 
create humane customs which the law is im- 
potent to create. It can create the convic- 

*The Social Basis of Religion, p. 230. 



158 ADEQUATE NORM 



tions and customs which are later embodied 
in good legislation.! As the result of natural 
circumstances, therefore, institutions work- 
ing for the betterment of the conditions of 
life will be fostered whereas those that are 
drags and drawbacks, draining moral energy 
and stultifying moral growth, will be made 
to know that they are institutiones non 
gratae. And they will die a natural death. 



f Rauschenbusch, "Christianity and the Social 
Crisis," p. 413. 



CONCLUSION 



A NOTE OF HOPE 

And now in drawing this discussion to its 
close it behooves us to sound a note of hope. 
The forces of evil are so many and mighty 
that one in the cloudier moments of life is apt 
as did Hamlet to despair or as did Timon to 
hate or yet as does the irresponsible to let 
things be; but such attitudes ill become the 
Christian. Myers advises aright when he 
bids : 

"Let no man think that sudden in a minute 
All is accomplished and the work is done — 
Though with thine earliest dawn thou 

shouldst begin it 
Scarce were it ended on thy setting sun." 

There is satisfaction enough if we but 
approximate the ideal. Each battle fought 
and victory won bring with them a reward 
159 



160 ADEQUATE NORM 



which, though partial, is none the less real. 
There is comfort in the consciousness that we 
have done our duty in proportion to the light, 
the talent, entrusted to our keeping. If this 
were not the case we should crave to live 
on in this world continually and curse the 
time when that craving comes to face defeat 
in death. But the sense of duty done, and 
knowledge that the work begun will continue 
under leadership that gains in efficiency from 
day to day, cause us to cheerfully resign the 
sword of the spirit to our sons and our sons' 
sons. "In asking for faith in the possibility 
of a new social order," says Dr. Rauschen- 
busch, "we ask for no Utopian delusion. We 
know well that there is no perfection for man 
in this life; there is only growth towards 
perfection. In personal religion we look 
with seasoned suspicion at anyone who 
claims to be holy and perfect, yet we always 
tell men to become holy and to seek perfec- 
tion. We make it a duty to seek what is un- 
attainable. We have the same paradox in 
the perfectibility of society. We shall never 
have a perfect social life, yet we must seek 
it with faith. We shall never abolish suffer- 



CONCLUSION 



161 



ing. There will always be death and the 
empty chair and heart. There will always 
he the agony of love unreturned. Women 
will always long for children and never press 
baby lips to their breast. Men will long for 
fame and miss it. Imperfect moral insight 
will work hurt in the best conceivable social 
order. The strong will always have the im- 
pulse to exert their strength, and no system 
can be devised which can keep them from 
crowding and jostling the weaker. Increased 
social refinement will bring increased sensi- 
tiveness to pain. An American may suffer 
as much distress through a social slight as a 
Russian peasant under the knout. At best 
there is always but an approximation to the 
perfect social order. The kingdom of God is 
always but coming."* 

The indefinite duration of the struggle for 
social and moral adjustment, from the Chris- 
tian viewpoint, should serve as a lever to, 
and not as a dead weight on, our moral en- 
ergies. It establishes more rationally than 
anything else the true relationship between 
man and his Maker ; it inspires adoration for 

fPp. 240, 241. 



162 ADEQUATE NORM 



God and respect for man. Says Dr. Patten : 
"God and man are not distinct in kind, but 
as man incorporates the godlike into himself 
by his social progress, newer views of the 
residual that lie between himself and perfec- 
tion make God appear to be even more differ- 
ent from himself than He formerly seemed 
to be. God is a being on whose trail we 
always are, but whom we never can over- 
take. We approach Him only to find our- 
selves farther off than before." Farther be- 
cause of the more attenuated quality of our 
moral perception ; because of the keener con- 
sciousness of the sublimity of absolute per- 
fection. We adore Divinity because of its 
ideality; we respect Humanity because we 
find it working its way onward following the 
course of its essential nature towards ideal- 
ity. St. Paul is happy in his conclusion of 
the whole matter. He sums up the noble 
business of life in the familiar words: 
"Stretching forward to the things that are 
before, we press on towards the goal for the 
prize of the high calling of God in Christ 
Jesus" — a goal and a prize which, unattain- 



CONCLUSION 163 



able here (and this is a fundamental Chris- 
tian hope) may fully be attained hereafter. 

"Thou love of God ! Or let me die 
Or grant what shall seem heaven almost ! 
Only let me go on, go on, 
Still hoping ever and anon 
To reach some eve the Better Land!"* 



*Browning , 's "Easter Day.' : 



